Careers: "The problem isn't talent -- there is a lot around," explains Nick Corcodilos. "The problem, I think, is management." Companies are so focused on stock price and PR that they define jobs so narrowly they can't find the perfect candidate. "The focus is on filling jobs rather than building bench strength. So companies wage a talent war, lawyers handle the recruiting, the whole thing is revealed to be a sham, and HR is left holding the H-1B bag."

Green IT: Dell chills with Emerson, but the companies claim that the combined Dell-Liebert Energy Smart Solutions heat up servers by delivering an 80 percent performance increase and a 42 percent power reduction, Ted Samson reports.

Columnist's corner: Thanks to a CIO he spoke with, David Margulius has a new viewpoint on Web 2.0. It's a way for customers to rather easily, in said CIO's words, "show disrespect for long-established business processes." As a result, consumers may begin refusing corporate wrappers and, instead, dictate functionality themselves and even force providers to come to them. "But how will this play out for b-to-b customers?" Margulius asks in Web 2.0 fosters healthy disrespect. "Mostly they'll insist on a lower price or better service, as Web 2.0 and its cousin SaaS increase access to real-time price discovery and flexible sourcing." There are costs and risks, to be certain.

The news beat: AMD gets ready to launch its first quad-core server chips, otherwise known as Barcelona. The U.S. CDT and FTC disagree on spyware laws as a trio of anti-spyware bills marches forward on Capitol Hill. The EU and the US move closer to signing a data accord about airline passenger data. And RealPlayer and Helix Player are vulnerable to attacks that could let hacker's take control of a victim's PC.

Posted by Tom Sullivan on June 28, 2007 10:58 AM