Headlines:
Harland Raises Profit Outlook
John H. Harland Co., citing unexpected strength in its printed products business, has raised its earnings outlook for the first quarter and the full year.
The Atlanta check printer said Thursday that it now expects to post first-quarter earnings of 59 cents to 62 cents a share, compared with its earlier guidance of 50 cents to 55 cents. For the full year, it now expects to post earnings of $2.46 to $2.51 a share, rather than $2.38 to $2.43.
The full-year outlook includes both anticipated results from Intrieve Inc., the Cincinnati core processing vendor that Harland bought April 4, and the cost of expensing stock-based compensation programs, which it plans to introduce in the third quarter.
The printed product division includes Harland's check-printing business, and generated about 61% of its revenue last year.
Harland is scheduled to report its first-quarter earnings May 10. In January, it also raised its guidance for the fourth quarter and all of 2004, because of stronger-than-expected operating results and a one-time balance-sheet adjustment.
MidFirst: Software Lowers Costs
MidFirst Bank of Oklahoma City said it has cut its employee IT support costs by installing software that lets employees reset their computer passwords by themselves.
Lee Hoyle, the network administrator for MidFirst, said it has saved $20,000 in staff help desk calls since installing the Password Station software suite from the San Ramon, Calif., vendor Avatier Corp. in November.
Though most e-commerce Web sites let customers change their passwords by themselves, many companies still require their tech staff to authenticate employees when issuing a new password.
Mr. Hoyle said that MidFirst employees often need new passwords. "We have a lot of people who change their password on Friday, and come Monday, they have no clue" what the password is, he said. With Avatier's software, "they can fix it by themselves."
MidFirst is on track to recover the software's cost in nine months, he said. When his bank's primary help desk employee left in January, call volume had dropped so much that the bank did not hire a successor.
Nelson A. Cicchitto, Avatier's president, said that even when users forget their passwords, "we can confirm the identity of a person very quickly."
To accomplish this, the software asks the user personal questions, much as many e-commerce sites ask for a mother's maiden name, city of birth, or childhood pet's name.
The software can also incorporate more stringent authentication methods, such as using biometrics to identify an employee's voice over the phone, or demanding a code number from a password-generating token device.
