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Technology Stocks : Novell (NOVL) dirt cheap, good buy? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: EPS who wrote (26819)	5/4/1999 9:08:00 AM
From: Spartex	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42771

On privacy initiatives by Clinton et al. FYI (Insert DigitalMe where appropriate, as a real solution). Clinton to Back Privacy Measures By Kathleen Day and Robert O'Harrow Jr. Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, May 4, 1999; Page E1 President Clinton plans to unveil today a long-promised proposal to beef up privacy protection and other consumer rights in an age when banks, securities firms and insurers employ computer technology to amass and use huge libraries of financial and medical information about their customers. The proposal will be one of Clinton's most ambitious efforts to bolster consumer privacy and protections against alleged abuses by the financial industry. The Clinton administration will ask Congress to require banks and other financial institutions to give consumers the chance to limit how much of their financial and medical records can be shared or sold to others, according to White House documents and officials familiar with the plan. How many of those restrictions would apply to sharing among affiliated companies was unclear, sources said. The administration also will press for measures designed to ensure that financial services companies give consumers much more detail about floating credit card rates, fees for the use of automated teller machines and other financial arrangements, sources said. To fight abuses on the Internet, the plan will seek more than $5 million in funding from Congress to bolster online surveillance and train law enforcement officials in how to combat securities fraud. The White House also will call for a "public-private partnership" to track down fraud artists who misuse individuals' personal information to steal their money and use their credit cards. The partnership would also educate consumers about how personal information can be abused. "President Clinton believes that consumers deserve notice and choice about the use of their personal information," the White House said in a memo about today's event. "Consumers who undergo physical exams to obtain insurance, for example, should not have to fear that the information would be used to lower their credit card limits or deny them mortgages." Banking industry officials said they support giving consumers a say in how information is being used. But John Byrne, senior counsel for the American Bankers Association, cautioned that it is necessary to strike a balance. He said overly restrictive "barriers and hurdles" could hinder the creation of new financial products and services that consumers have shown they want. Banking regulators have met several times over the past six months to try to figure out ways to make banks do a better job of disclosing their privacy policies. Officials at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks, have even given banks suggestions on how to improve their performance in this area, warning the institutions that if they don't, they risk losing consumers' trust. The impact the Clinton proposals will have on industry-backed financial legislation now before Congress is unclear. The White House has said that unless more consumer protections are included, it will veto a bankruptcy bill and a bill that would revamp financial services. But a White House official said last night that the administration does not expect all of its proposals will be added to those existing bills. Banking officials prefer to have privacy issues handled in a separate bill or they may drop support for banking overhaul legislation. The House banking bill currently includes limited protections for consumers while the Senate bill does not address privacy issues. Some Democrats were angry at the White House's timing. They fear that releasing the proposals today will overshadow a rally in Washington by civil rights groups who want to put pressure on Republicans to make sure any financial service legislation preserves laws requiring banks to invest in underserved communities. The White House favors keeping those laws, the Democrats pointed out, so they expressed puzzlement about why President Clinton would make an announcement that would draw attention from the rally. Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland, who is the senior Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, called the White House yesterday to request that the release of the proposal be delayed, congressional sources said. A senior Clinton administration official discounted such grumbling, saying that White House plans to release the proposals weeks ago were put off because of the war in Yugoslavia. Clinton has already expressed support for consumer provisions in both bills and doesn't necessarily expect Congress to include proposals that might hinder their passage. The debate over the sharing of consumer information has become acute in recent years, as more and more companies from different industries forged giant mergers, in part because of the value of marrying databases of customer transactions. The days when banks held tight rein on information about what a customer buys, or where they vacation or go out for dinner are slipping by. Increasingly, banks share such information with affiliates with the aim of finding out customers' tastes and then pitching new products or services their way, according to Edmund Mierzwinski, consumer advocate for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group in Washington. And it's all legal, under current law. "Do you really want one organization knowing everything about your banking habits, your financial transactions, insurance activity, life insurance?" he said. "It opens you to manipulation. It creates a dossier more powerful than the FBI could have on you" without a subpoena. In a "Dear Colleague" letter a few days ago, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) pressed for support for legislation that would curb such sharing. "Do you believe your banking transaction experiences are private?" he wrote. "You may be surprised to learn that with certain exceptions, financial institutions may legally share all of the information about you and your bank account activity with affiliated business or even third parties." © Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company washingtonpost.com

To: EPS who wrote (26819)	5/5/1999 10:57:00 PM
From: DJBEINO	Respond to of 42771

Novell to outline plans for NetWare at NetWorld+Interop By Paul Krill InfoWorld Electric Posted at 5:09 PM PT, May 5, 1999 Continuing to move its core NetWare product beyond its file-and-print foundations, Novell by mid-2000 will release three upgrades to its NetWare 5 network OS, focusing on improvements for Internet deployment, multiprocessing, and 64-bit functionality, company officials said on Wednesday. The company also is planning directory-specific enhancements related to electronic commerce and extending directories across an enterprise, according to sources familiar with the company's plans. Set for formal announcement at the NetWorld+Interop conference in Las Vegas next week, the NetWare releases, in order of availability, are code-named Cobra, which features Web enhancements; 6 Pack, which is a multiprocessor-enhanced package; and Modesto, which supports Intel's 64-bit Merced processor. Novell officials did not provide general availability information for the releases. Also to be highlighted at the show is NetWare Small Business Suite 5.0, which is an upgrade to the NetWare for Small Businesses 4.2 solution for small companies and departments with approximately 50 employees. Cobra, set for beta release in late June, features server management via HTTP, Netscape's Enterprise Server for NetWare Web server, WebDav Web file system support, and FrontPage Web authoring extensions. 6 Pack, set for initial beta release in July, adds multithreaded functionality to features such as the file system to enable multiprocessing. The product is optimized for eight-way multiprocessing. Novell Storage Services, for network-attached storage, also is featured. A theoretical memory limit of 64GB is supported in the release. Novell's Modesto product is Novell's offering for the Intel Merced chip and is due to ship concurrently with Merced availability. Novell sources confirmed two directory-related developments are under way: iChain, which links the directory to electronic-commerce applications, and Virtual Replica, a meta-directory-based technology that could be used to link Novell Directory Services (NDS) across enterprises, among other uses. No release dates were revealed. Novell Small Business Suite 5 adds the company's BorderManager FastCache 3.0 caching system and ZENworks starter Pack 1.1 management package. Other utilities are included for Web page composition and development, faxing, Internet connections, Web services, and virus scanning. The suite is set for shipment this summer. Pricing details have not yet been released. Novell on Tuesday also announced release of a beta version of its NDS 8.0. It will be available for download from Novell's Web site on May 11. Novell Inc., in Orem, Utah, is at www.novell.com. infoworld.com