BIZAUTO BULLETIN 97.2 NEWS

He's Had Lots of Practice

An Illinois computer programmer won a combined bicycle race and doughnut-eating contest. The event consisted of a 30-mile bike ride during which riders are encouraged to eat the sweet confections: 5 minutes was subtracted from the riders' time for every doughnut they downed. The winner completed the course in 2 hours and 1 minute (15 miles per hour), but his time was adjusted down to 31 minutes because he ate 18 doughnuts enroute (1.667 miles per doughnut). As a computer programmer, he was no stranger to doughnuts . . . but imagine how much faster he might have been if he'd gotten credit for all the pizzas and Diet Coke too.

File Electronically . . . Or Else!

The IRS has built a new system, the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS), to accept payroll tax and other deposits. Companies with 10 or fewer employees may have to start filing and depositing payroll taxes electronically in January 1997 . . . or pay a 10% penalty. This applies to all employers that made 1995 deposits of $50,000 or more, approximately what IRS Form 941 deposits would be for a 10-employee firm with average earnings of $25,000 per employee. Once the electronic filing requirement "kicks in" it applies not just to payroll taxes, but also to excise tax, federal unemployment tax, corporate income tax and various other federal taxes.

That is not the extent of it, however. The requirements extend further down the scale in 1998 and 1999. Employers that cross the $50,000 threshold in 1996 have to start filing electronically 1998. The deposit limit drops to $20,000 in 1997 (for filing beginning in 1999), which could easily be crossed by a single-employee company.

FAA Warning: Watch Your PC

The FAA recently issued a warning to travelers carrying notebook PCs telling them to watch for computer thieves when going through airport metal detectors. Here is how the now common airport scam operates: two PC thieves position themselves in front of a victim and when he puts his computer on the conveyor belt, the first thief moves through quickly. Meanwhile, the second thief sets off the detector and blocks passage while his accomplice takes the PC. By the time the victim finally gets through, the computer is long gone and the first thief has disappeared into the crowd. The FAA advisory suggests that travelers in metal detector lines delay putting PCs and other luggage onto the conveyor belt until they are sure they will be the next person through, so they can keep a close watch on their property.

Salary Survey

Computerworld completed its annual survey of the compensation of computer personnel. The highest paid industries were the computer industry, banking, insurance, chemicals, forest products, food and beverage, aeronautics/ automotive, media and telecommunications. The largest firms paid 10% to 50% more than mid-size firms and smaller ones paid from 5% to 20% less. For those interested in reviewing their computer staff compensation, Business Automation does compensation analyses.

On the "I-Way"

The web is the fastest growing technology in history. It took the telephone 38 years to reach 10 million customers, it took fax 22 years, VCRs and cellular phones took 9 years, and PCs took 7 years. In contrast, the World Wide Web garnered 10 million users in a record 3 years, according to Cyberatlas.

Internet FAX is coming. Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will soon be offering fax capability over the Internet. Because this capability is not inherent in the Internet itself, ISPs are expected to charge for it on a per-page or per-message basis. However, pricing is only about one tenth of the cost of sending the same fax via long distance.

Internet-based long distance is here . . . but "not ready for prime time." Several software packages now support "free" long distance "phone calling" over the Internet, but early users are not enthusiastic. Limitations include poor or intermittent sound, one-way talking at a time, and no way to "ring" the party being called. Some problems will not go away because they are inherent to the Internet's structure; others may be solved shortly.

Need to get your e-mail while traveling overseas? At least two of the major services, CompuServe and the IBM Connection, offer subscribers local phone access to the net from locations all over the world.

The Better Business Bureau will soon have a Web site. Having rid the Internet of unauthorized imitators, the BBB will begin issuing BBBOnLine "seals" this year to web-based merchants that abide by its standards and agree to its monitoring and arbitration procedures. The Bureau is accepting applications now at "www.bbbonline.org".

News Briefs

The "Year-2000 problem" has enterprise-wide impact. Many old computer programs will "choke" when 1999 ends and 2000 begins because they use a two-digit field for the year. The cost of removing or changing these references can be huge. A "Big Six" CPA firm reported recently that it knew of a company that sold its business rather than investing the amount needed to fix its computer programs.

The government is getting serious about computer modernization. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has given Federal agencies an ultimatum: shape up their computer systems, or funding will be cut. An October memo sent to all agencies gave them three weeks to identify their improvement projects . . . and they better meet some strict guidelines to get approval. A high OMB official was quoted in Computerworld as saying, "I'd be very surprised if everything currently being funded remains funded."

Digital pays. The City of Worcester, MA threatened to run an ad in the Wall Street Journal trashing Digital Equipment Company for its failure to deliver a promised system (including both hardware and software). Shortly thereafter, Digital quickly agreed to pay the city $33,000 per month to keep its old system running until the new one is ready (although it claims the threatened ad was not why). More important, according to the Mayor, is the fact that Digital is now "fully focused" on the problem.

Super high-speed local area networks (LANs) are just over the horizon. Most LANs today operate at a speed of 10 million bits of data per second (10 Mbps), and the ongoing transition to 100 Mbps is not expected to really catch on for another year or two. By the time it does, however, standards will have been set for LAN transmission an order of magnitude faster, or one billion bits of data per second (1 Gbps). This extra high speed will require fiber-optic cabling and could be available as early as 1997 or 1998.

Computer Crime Watch

Viruses are more common than in the past. The National Computer Security Association (NCSA) reported that the 1% of all computers on large business and government networks can be expected to get a virus each month. This is five to ten times higher than in prior years. The most common viruses spread as "macros" on Microsoft Word and Excel documents (Microsoft itself is rumored to have been struck many times). These viruses often spread as attachments to e-mail messages and attack when the unsuspecting recipients read them. Once activated, macro viruses propagate through a network, infecting numerous users' files. The NCSA study showed that downtime and productivity losses were the most common results of a virus infection, but that data was lost or corrupted more than half the time. According to the NCSA, more than 60% of all virus attacks are resolved for less than $2,000, but a few have cost $100,000 and up.

Internet transmissions may be safe . . . but many Internet merchants are not. Nearly every Internet site that sells over the Web uses "secure transaction" techniques to safeguard the actual sales transmissions. Most experts agree that this approach is quite safe, but that may not be enough. A reporter for a popular Internet news organization recently "cracked" two Internet-based servers where credit card numbers and other confidential data were stored, and this turned out to be much easier than decoding "secure" messages. The bad news is that these computers could have contained information that came in through supposedly safer methods (like "800" numbers) as well as over the net. The good news is that the "break" was widely publicized in the Internet community and many web sites have tightened up as a result.

Computer Update

Intel cut 10% to 20% off its Pentium Pro chip prices in two stages, but high demand has caused shortages and kept prices higher than expected. The Pentium Pro (PPro) is Intel's sixth generation chip (i.e., the '686) just as the Pentium was the fifth generation ('586). But unlike other generation changes, this one is not necessarily a quantum leap ahead. In fact, most of today's Windows and Win95 software does not run any faster on the Pentium Pro than it does on a Pentium of the same speed (MHz). The PPro chips do, however, run faster with advanced software (including Windows NT) that will lead the industry in future years. A new multimedia-enhanced PPro (the MMX version) due early next year should lower demand and prices on the current version of the PPro.

Novell's NetWare is still the most popular network, and is expected to stay that way for at least three more years. Though Microsoft is doing all it can to entice Netware users to convert to Windows NT, International Data Corp. projects that NetWare will remain atop the market until mid-1999. The reason for this despite NT's superior business software compatibility is that Netware has far better support for wide area networks (WANs).

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