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For the record 09 May 
Wednesday, May 09 2001
by Paula Mythen


Entropy warns of a new e-mail worm with the subject line "Homepage" | eMarketer
forecasts that USD2.1 billion will be spent on e-mail marketing by year-end 2001

Details of the Golden Spiders Awards 2001 will be announced Wednesday
evening.  Entries will be accepted on-line at www.spiderawards.com and the
closing date for entries is Friday 27 July 2001. The Spiders are open to
individuals and companies, designers and community groups, whether the sites are
designed for commercial or educational use.  The fifteen categories reflect the
extensive and varied role that the Internet plays in modern Irish life - from
business to entertainment, information to marketing. 

 

Entropy is warning Irish companies that a new e-mail worm with the subject
line "Homepage" is spreading rapidly. The Internet worm was created with a
Visual Basic Script worm generator. It propagates only through Microsoft Outlook
and travels by sending itself as an e-mail attachment to all addresses listed in
the infected user's address book. In addition, the worm tries to randomly open
certain pornographic Web sites using Internet Explorer. The e-mail with the worm
has the subject "Homepage" and the attachment "HOMEPAGE.HTML.VBS." The mail
contains the text Hi! You've got to see this page! It's really cool ;O).

 

The new e-mail marketing report from eMarketer forecasts that USD2.1
billion will be spent on e-mail marketing by year-end 2001, a 110 percent
increase over the USD1.1 billion spent in 2000. The report also reveals that
there is a significant difference in the click through rate between opt-in
e-mails and banner ads. There is an average 3.2 percent click-through rate for
opt-in e-mails versus only 0.3 percent for banner ads. 

 

Iona announced the completion of its acquisition of Netfish Technologies,
a provider of integrated XML-based business-to-business integration (B2Bi)
solutions. Pursuant to the acquisition agreement, Iona will issue approximately
5.5 million ordinary shares (prior to reduction for customary closing
adjustments) for all of Netfish Technologies' common stock on a fully diluted
basis as of 08 May 2001, the effective date of the acquisition. The acquisition
will be accounted for as a purchase.

 

Vodafone announce that its subsidiary, Vodafone Investments Australia
Limited ('VIAL'), intends to make a cash offer of approximately AUS200 million
for Mobile Communications Holdings Limited ('MBC').  MBC holds 4.5 percent of
Vodafone Pacific Limited. The offer price is AUS4.05 in cash for each MBC Share.

 

Only 64 percent of European organizations have implemented an intranet, according
to a recent IDC survey, and just 33 percent have implemented an extranet.
IDC surveyed 405 organizations across Europe and found evidence of a clear north,
south divide in Europe in terms of knowledge management adoption. The company
expects extranet adoption to catch up with high intranet adoption within the next
three years. Again there is a geographical divide. Swedish respondents are the
most enthusiastic, with 78 percent and 54 percent having already deployed
intranet and extranet technologies, respectively. UK respondents, despite usually
being early adopters of collaborative technologies, seem the most reluctant to
implement intranet and extranet technologies, with only 55 percent and 26
percent, respectively, having implemented these applications.

 

24/7 Media Europe has won Genie's UK media sales business across all
interactive platforms - Web, WAP, SMS and e-mail. Through a rolling two-year
contract, it aims to realise the potential of Genie's cross-platform businesses,
maximise revenues and integrate services to improve user experience. 

 

France Telecom Mobiles adds a new service to its i-Services multi-access
portal, enabling its customers to create their own mobile Internet property,
thanks to a WAP site creator developed and provided by Antepo. User features
include a Web-based engine for data entries, while using WAP and SMS modules for
login, identification and browsing. The WAP site creator is one of Antepo's
communication-focused applications. 

 

ABFL confirmed on Wednesday that Teles EuroService Limited has granted
ABFL exclusive wholesale marketing rights in the UK for the German-based skyDSL
satellite Internet service. ABFL is currently recruiting up to five UK resellers.
The service is immediately available throughout the UK.  It can deliver
information from the Internet at speeds up to 8Mb/s. UK retail pricing (at
typical usage levels up to 4Mb/s) is expected to be below the current market
rates for 0.5Mb/s ADSL services.  It is ideal for businesses that need a choice
of operating speeds.

 

Oracle announced that ABN AMRO is working the company to provide financial
services to users of Oracle's B2B exchange software. Through this partnership,
ABN AMRO intends to integrate certain financial services with Oracle's B2B
exchange software such as financial payment, collection and settlement services,
trade finance services, and integration of Identrus as a digital certificate
standard in the Oracle Exchange Platform. Additionally, the two companies have
established a fully automated transaction and payment-processing infrastructure
for a Oracle's Shared Service Center for its EMEA Division. The Shared Service
Centre is based in Dublin, Ireland.

 

CERT has received reports of a new piece of self-propagating malicious
code known as the sadmind/IIS worm which uses two well-known vulnerabilities to
compromise systems and deface Web pages. Based on preliminary analysis, the
sadmind/IIS worm exploits a vulnerability in Solaris systems and subsequently
installs software to attack Microsoft IIS Web servers. In addition, it includes a
component to propagate itself automatically to other vulnerable Solaris systems.


 

Sound Advantage and Lucent Technologies announced the formation of a
technology alliance. The companies have signed a three-year licensing and joint
development agreement under which they will incorporate the Lucent Automatic
Speech Recognition (LASR) engine, developed by Bell Labs, into the next version
of SANDi (Sound Advantage Natural Dialog Interface), to be known as SANDi 2.1.