- Apple leaves Hawaiian investor in the cold
- Daily News beat for May 7, 2008
- Riding the autorenewal express
- InfoWorld News beat for May 6, 2008
- InfoWorld News beat for May 5, 2008
- Daily News beat for May 2, 2008
- BEA employees in mourning
- Getting Creative with Crippleware
- Daily news beat for April 10, 2008
- Daily news beat for April 9, 2008
May 08, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Apple leaves Hawaiian investor in the cold
If anyone could figure out a system to let its investors cast their proxy votes online, you'd think it'd be Apple, right?
Not so. Ed Foster tells the tale of a reader who gripes that Apple, who "brought us such breakthroughs as the Macintosh, OS X, the iPod and now the iPhone, seems to be the only company in the U.S. which uses a proxy voting service which can't deliver materials in a timely fashion. ... Even Microsoft, using the Swiss cheese of operating systems, is able to deliver their investor materials on time!"
Before you write this off as a one-time snafu on Apple's part, the reader adds: "P.S.: This is the fourth year in a row I've tried to get some help from Apple and/or InvestorVote.com to resolve this problem."
Visit the Gripe Line and "cast your vote for the technology company that acts like you're not even on the map."
Posted by Caroline Craig on May 8, 2008 09:06 AM
May 07, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Daily News beat for May 7, 2008
Bill Gates says Microsoft is focused on its independent strategy and won't be pursuing tie-ups or takeovers to replace its failed Yahoo bid.
A beta of OpenOffice 3.0 is released that supports the forthcoming ODF 1.2 standard and can open files created with Microsoft Office 2007 or Office 2008 for Mac.
At its JavaOne conference, Sun details upcoming versions of Java, that emphasize flexibility, modularity, and OSGi support.
Sprint Nextel and Clearwire will form a joint venture worth $14.5 billion to deploy the first nationwide mobile WiMax network.
Adware pushers have found a new way to trick you into downloading their annoying products: fake MP3 files.
Posted by Caroline Craig on May 7, 2008 08:40 AM
May 06, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Riding the autorenewal express
With credit card companies coming under increased scrutiny for unfair and deceptive practices, it seems a good time for Ed Foster to turn the Gripe Line's eye on the role they play in autorenewal situations.
In his blog Foster writes: "As autorenewals by security software vendors and others become increasingly common, we need to know whose side our financial institutions are on.
"Do credit card companies protect their customers from online services that automatically renew annual subscriptions without clear notice, or do they collude with vendors to keep the transaction fees flowing?"
One reader was told by an American Express representative that "automatic renewals of all kinds of subscriptions are now the 'norm' and thus not open to dispute even if the customer didn't get proper notice during the original transaction."
There were even disturbing stories that "indicated that changing one's card number doesn't necessarily eliminate autorenewals."
Get the whole scoop.
Posted by Caroline Craig on May 6, 2008 09:22 AM
May 06, 2008 | Comments: (0)
InfoWorld News beat for May 6, 2008
A general class-action lawsuit accuses Yahoo of failing to act in the best interest of shareholders in rejecting Microsoft's takeover bid.
HTC announces the Touch Diamond Microsoft-based smartphone, which beats rival Apple's iPhone to the punch with 3G capabilities.
Intel, Samsung, and TSMC will collaborate on 450mm silicon wafers. Once the chip companies have made the move, users should start to see higher-performing chips at lower prices
NBC strikes deal to sell television programs on Microsoft's Zune online store after a pricing spat with Apple led it to pull its content from iTunes.
Yahoo searches could turn up fewer hits because the company plans to use McAfee's SiteAdvisor to filter out malicious Web sites that have been linked to spam, phishing, or malicious software.
Posted by Caroline Craig on May 6, 2008 08:49 AM
May 05, 2008 | Comments: (0)
InfoWorld News beat for May 5, 2008
Microsoft has dropped its three-month-long pursuit of Yahoo after Yahoo refused its revised offer of $33 per share. The failed acquisition attempt takes Microsoft back to square one in its quest to boost its online business to better compete against Google.
Related: Microsoft and Yahoo: What now?
Tech-savvy delinquents are setting the Net aflame with boneheaded exploits that earn them the wrong kind of fame. Get the details on the latest generation of cyberschnooks in Stupid hacker tricks, part two: The folly of youth.
Sun and the OpenSolaris community are launching the official first version of the open-source OpenSolaris operating system. Also arriving from Sun is the NetBeans 6.1 open source IDE and a pre-release version of NetBeans for PHP developers.
Google has removed an open-source project that enables the proprietary CoreAVC high-definition video decoder to run in Linux after the codec's developer complained that the project had engaged in "reverse engineering without permission."
The shortage of lithium-ion batteries that is currently hurting laptop shipments will likely ease in the third quarter, according to the head of Simplo Technology, the world's largest independent notebook battery maker.
Posted by Caroline Craig on May 5, 2008 08:12 AM
May 02, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Daily News beat for May 2, 2008
Microsoft reportedly is gearing up for a hostile acquisition of Yahoo, with a formal announcement possible Friday.
Yahoo could begin carrying Google ads within a week, making it more difficult for Microsoft to take over Yahoo.
IBM outlined plans for an online applications marketplace that will let businesses browse and purchase apps from potentially thousands of ISVs.
Researchers have discovered a complex spamming scheme that uses a backdoor called Edunet to hijack users' PCs in order to send junk mail via university and military systems.
Sun blames its third-quarter revenue drop on a weak U.S. economy and costs of the MySQL acquisition, and plans to cut as many as 2,500 jobs over the next three months.
Posted by Caroline Craig on May 2, 2008 08:41 AM
May 02, 2008 | Comments: (0)
What was loosely termed a "wake" to recognize that BEA no longer exists as an independent company featured a humorous, makeshift casket in the corner of the room.
But InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill writes that the event nonetheless seemed to be a cheery gathering.
One BEA employee conceded that the merger makes sense, saying "it's actually a very good, powerful synergy between the companies."
Another employee observed "Oracle offered a fair price, and the board has a fiduciary responsibility to accept it."
Still, the absorption of BEA into Oracle does represent a loss. "What's a shame is that [BEA] was a great place to work, and many of us who are here tonight were commenting that [working at BEA was] the highlight of our careers," said an employee who could be let go as soon as next week.
Oracle has absorbed so many companies that "it's not clear that they're integrating the companies as efficiently as they could," that employee added.
Posted by Caroline Craig on May 2, 2008 06:14 AM
April 11, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Getting Creative with Crippleware
Creative Labs in the last few weeks has made it loud and clear that users who tinker with their drivers risk being shouted down.
"As far as Creative is concerned, it's not for you the user to decide how badly your Sound Blaster card will or will not function," Ed Foster reports in this Gripe Line post.
At issue is why Creative had crippled its soundcards' functionality under Windows Vista -- as well as why it withheld features that were present and functional under XP.
Customers were outraged when Creative lashed out a user who posted "modified drivers on Creative's forums, much to the delight of other Sound Blaster customers who had thought Vista drivers were just buggy."
Part of the problem is that Creative had advertised it as being Vista-compatible and then failed to deliver on that promise, seemingly intentionally so it could charge extra for access to those features in the future.
"Does any company really have the right to prevent a customer from modifying a product to make it work as advertised, or prevent them from telling others how to do so?" Foster asks.
Talkback via the comments function below or at the link above.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on April 11, 2008 10:47 AM
April 10, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Daily news beat for April 10, 2008
One day after Yahoo said it will test Google search ads, reports are circulating that Yahoo is in talks with AOL about a deal that could help fend off Microsoft. But at least according to some analysts a Microsoft takeover is the most likely future for Yahoo.
Symantec says it will buy AppStream to help it compete with products such as the Thinstall Virtualization Suite and Microsoft's SoftGrid. Related blog: Symantec finally buys AppStream.
At the RSA Conference, DLP experts preach the long-term view, maintaining that by understanding that the larger benefits of data leak prevention (DLP) cannot be achieved overnight, and selecting technologies that can address specific needs, customers will both accelerate the DLP process and make it more effective. Related special report: RSA Conference 2008.
Apple's newest iPhone SDK, meanwhile, hints at 3G possibilities; a change in chips may inadvertently confirm that the phone will be upgraded to 3G this summer.
And IBM states its intent to buy FilesX for its data protection software. The storage software company’s technology centers on continuous data protection and "nearly instant" data and application recovery for enterprises and branch offices running Windows environments.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on April 10, 2008 08:53 AM
April 09, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Daily news beat for April 9, 2008
The rumor mill is spinning with speculation of a Citrix takeover by IBM or Cisco. One analyst says that such an acquisition would, in fact, make sense for Cisco or IBM, but not for Microsoft.
Out of the M&A abstract and into the concrete present, Yahoo scoops up IndexTools' Web analytics business, with which it plans to extend its current analytics platform by adding capabilities to deliver insights and metrics for online marketing campaigns
What with the RSA Conference 2008 going on in San Francisco this week, security is front and center in the news. Speaking at the conference, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff detailed a "reverse Manhattan Project" DHS is working on to lock down government computers. Also at the show, feds tout cyber-security gains, just not without admitting that Congress and the White House should have moved faster to address cyber-security challenges.
And newshound Robert X. Cringely joins the cacophony of reports suggesting that blogging is bad for your health. Three high-profile heart attacks have Cringe just a bit worried about his own self. "Now the truth can finally be told about the Living Hell that is InfoWorld's blog factory." Blog and/or die.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on April 9, 2008 11:10 AM
April 07, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Daily news beat for April 7, 2008
Yahoo again rebuffs Microsoft in an open letter, this time stating that it considers Microsoft's new threat "counterproductive and inconsistent" and insisting that it is open to a deal but only at a higher price. Yahoo's letter came on Monday morning, after Microsoft on Saturday threatened to engage in a proxy fight if Yahoo does not accept its offer.
Borland touts Web 2.0 for lifecycle management. By injecting the Borland Silk 2008 ALM product line with Web 2.0 functionality, the company hopes to break down barriers between business, development and quality assurance.
A judge puts a stop to more 'Vista Capable' insider e-mails, such as the spate released in February, at least while a court reviews Microsoft’s appeal.
Sun refashions Java support options by extending the paid subscription program to 15 years, and reducing the duration for which those opting for the unpaid alternative will receive quarterly updates.
And Forrester says that IBM and Microsoft will dominate the 'information workplace' fray with respective collaboration applications. But don’t count out Web 2.0 startups, or Google, just yet.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on April 7, 2008 08:48 AM
April 01, 2008 | Comments: (0)
At first blush, it was a standard merger. Company U bought another, V, which outsourced IT to TLA.
But when U requested diagrams and other networking information, things were no longer so simple.
"Let's just say that my dog leaves more legible information on a fire hydrant than what we got from the TLA people," our Off the Record author writes in Bait and switch IT.
The problem stems from company V being for sale long enough that TLA could feel the profit draining out of its contract.
"We have a monitor in a prominent place with a countdown timer ticking off the minutes until we can finally remove these parasites from our wallets. I'm sure I'll have another submission to Off the Record before that happens, though."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on April 1, 2008 11:17 AM
March 24, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Align IT with business through instrumentation
Most IT organizations have typically invested a fortune in traditional systems management tools that provide insight into each individual layer of the IT platform, Tony Bishop explains.
But many of these companies have done so without deep understanding of the correlation of events across the platform that corresponds with an associated user transaction experience, Bishop adds.
To that end, Bishop offers two core building blocks that help IT gain "insight into the real-time user transaction experience and to incorporate analytical intelligence against end-to-end system events to gain a true understanding of IT system health."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 24, 2008 10:39 AM
March 19, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Are metrics practicable for IT?
That is the question one reader asks of Advice Line guru Bob Lewis.
"As I was crafting a message to a colleague today, I had an 'ah-ha moment' fueled by and reinforcing my skepticism," the reader explains. "I wondered: Can we measure the value of performance metrics?"
Lewis answers: "Ah, you remind me of me! Way back when, I asked the budget director of my then employer what the Return on Investment was on the budgeting process."
Getting back to the concrete, though, "for questions of this kind -- do metrics/SMART goals/outsourcing/offshoring/whatever the heck -- result in business success, I go back to the two big studies I know about that looked at the sources for long-term business success," Lewis writes in The ROI of Metrics.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 19, 2008 08:07 AM
March 07, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Daily news beat for March 7, 2008
During a bizarre Q&A session with a former Apple fellow, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was grilled about the Yahoo deal and even referred to his own company as the “little-engine that could” against search giant Google.
Microsoft says that in two weeks it will detail a deal under which Microsoft and Eclipse will collaborate and that the software company also plans to work with the Apache Foundation.
Intel prepares for its EU antitrust hearing on Tuesday, where it will defend some of its questionable business dealings with PC makers.
Patent reform tops the Business Software Alliance’s legislative priorities list.
And, in Geek week in review, Robert X. Cringely reports that Wikipedia is “the first time in recorded history that writing an encyclopedia has gotten anyone any nookie,” but our snarky reporter was then disappointed when Steve Jobs did not prance, dance, and chant on stage.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 7, 2008 09:45 AM
March 05, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Nicholas Carr's vision in reverse
Only central IT remains.
And, yes, that means no corporate-owned PCs for travelers, analysts, developers, and so on.
Bob Lewis puts forth that proposition in Getting to 21st century IT -- User-owned PCs?
“No corporate-owned PCs at all. Let employees buy their own -- whatever they think they need to do their job ... the nature of the protections IT would institute would be very different given the change in boundary.”
But is it a palatable or even realistic notion? Lewis opens up the floor to discussion. This is your chance. Talkback via the comments function below or at the link above.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 5, 2008 10:33 AM
March 05, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Daily news beat for March 5, 2008
By extending the deadline for nominating board members Yahoo acts to discourage a Microsoft proxy fight and hopes to buy time to seek alternatives to the proposed acquisition.
Sparked by a marked surge in data, video and voice traffic, AT&T plans to invest $1 billion to expand its IP networks for large corporations in 2008.
Avaya demos an iPhone version of one-X Mobile, but the company is waiting for Apple to issue the SDK until it knows if the iPhone will be open enough for Avaya to equip it for business.
Greenpeace ranks the greenest electronic devices and among the winners are Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Sony-Ericsson, but even they ought not to be rejoicing at these results.
IBM’s takeover of Telelogic gets approved by the European Commission, clearing the way for Big Blue to become the largest vendor of software modeling and requirements management tools.
And with investment banks last year predicting Google’s stock would soar even higher than it actually did, recent falling prices prompted Dan Nystedt of the IDG News Service to ask Whatever happened to Google $900? Well, at least one analyst still believes the search giant’s stock will climb up to $2000, just not very soon.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 5, 2008 10:05 AM
March 03, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Daily news beat for March 3, 2008
In case anyone thought the company merely changed its mind on the matter, CEO Steve Ballmer says Microsoft still has Yahoo in its sights, but declined to confirm whether it is preparing for a proxy fight.
In a move one official said has nothing to do with the proposed Yahoo deal, the Redmond giant on Monday is set to unwrap two new search products based on SharePoint that advance the company's enterprise, inside-the-firewall search.
The Cobra language was made available as open source, its developer said, who also added a Subversion-based repository.
Looking to bolster its presence in the realm, Sun Microsystems hires two prominent Python developers, and responded with "stay tuned" when asked about the possibility of adding Python and Jython support to NetBeans.
After a judge lifts the two-week old injunction against it, Wikileaks is back in business, a fact that is sure to please privacy and civil rights activists, but not Swiss Bank Julius Baer.
And Apple gets slammed over programming secrets when a Firefox developer uncovered dozens of secret tweaks built into WebKit that make Apple's own applications perform better with its operating systems than competitors' programs.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 3, 2008 09:45 AM
February 22, 2008 | Comments: (0)
InfoWorld News Quiz: The week in tech
The week that was was packed with Microsoft news, so you'll have to be on top of the software giant's actions to earn a passing grade.
First question: What is Microsoft's next likely move if Yahoo refuses to capitulate?
Got it? Then the last question is one of multiplication rock involving Linkin park, Apple's SoHo store, Microsoft's interoperability promises, and a satellite-killing missile.
In between, you'll find Vista getting yanked, WikiLeaks and shady Swiss Banks, and oh so much more.
Think you know tech? Prove it! Take the InfoWorld News Quiz.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on February 22, 2008 06:51 AM
February 15, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Reader's weigh in on Carr's prediction
Yesterday's post about Bob Lewis' translation of Nicholas Carr's most recent prediction drew several reader comments.
Most offer insightful agreements with Lewis assertion that people in the trenches, those "up to elbows in the challenges associated with integrating SaaS solutions into legacy environments," have a clearer picture than the hazy perspective one gets at the 100,000 feet vista.
In case you missed it: Lewis boils Carr's recent work, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google, into terms starkly relevant for enterprise IT. "Utility computing and SaaS mean IT will wither away.”
Then again, Lewis disagrees with the prediction.
As I mentioned so do some readers. One even points out that, "really big firms often do NOT 'outsource' their electrician functions, because for them economy of scale works in the other direction. If the simplest of simple to use utilities can still support an 'in house' support function in some cases, the idea that something orders of magnitude more complex won't sounds a bit far fetched, to say the least."
What do you think? Join the discussion via the link above, or talkback with the comments function below.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on February 15, 2008 10:22 AM
February 14, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Talkback: Experts' opinion of Carr's prediction
"Utility computing and SaaS mean IT will wither away," Bob Lewis interprets Nicholas Carr's newest stab at prophesy.
Carr, you'll recall, authored the controversial, yet perhaps not-entirely-understood, IT doesn't matter. (That link gets you only the first page of his Harvard Business Review article; want more and they'll charge you for it.)
More recently Mr. Carr wrote The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google, wherein he laid out the forecast to which Lewis refers.
"I don't think much of the prediction," Lewis writes in Experts' opinion of Carr's prediction (that means you).
"On the other hand, it's been a long time since I've personally written code, integrated applications or administered servers. That means I'm working from theory and memory, not current practice."
With that, Lewis turns to you, readers, the very folks "up to your elbows in the challenges associated with integrating SaaS solutions into your legacy environments."
What do you think - is Carr's future realistic, based on a ground-level view and not just the hazy perspective you get at 100,000 feet? Talkback via the comments function below or at the above link to Lewis' story.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on February 14, 2008 06:21 AM
February 11, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Cringe: Yahoo merely haggling over price with Microsoft
Rumor became reality on Monday, as Yahoo said that Microsoft's proposal, even at $44.6 billion, significantly under cuts what the company is really worth -- and so on those grounds Yahoo rejected Microsoft's bid. What's more, Yahoo's board said it would consider other options, including potentially buying AOL, according to some reports.
Our own Robert X. Cringely, meanwhile, weighs in and asks, Microsoft + Yahoo: What's love got to do with it? Evoking an old George Bernard Shaw scene, Cringe explains that Yahoo is declining Microsoft, "not because Yahoo is determined to remain chaste and in charge of its own future, but because the bid was too low. In other words, we've established what Yahoo is; now we're just haggling over the price." Wait, here comes Hunter S. Thompson talking about old whores and the giggling they no longer do.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on February 11, 2008 08:07 AM
January 24, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: We've all seen our share of weird restrictive EULA's (end-user license agreements) but, now, along comes what Ed Foster considers one of the strangest yet: a Fuji camera with a EULA that allows only certain people to use it, and only to take certain kinds of pictures. "No doubt some will applaud the company for trying to keep its technology out of the hands of perverts and paparazzi," Foster writes in this installment of Gripe Line. But it's a slippery slope. "Hey, maybe next we'll see gun manufacturers with EULAs that say you only shoot bad people with their weapons."
The news beat: Sources say that Microsoft will ship Vista SP1 in the next few weeks, though Microsoft declined to confirm the reported February 15 date, instead toeing the line that it will be available in the first quarter. Red Hat's new CEO, Jim Whitehurst, says the open source distributor will focus on its core Linux and middleware products as well as on improving the services it offers to customers. Former JBoss employees debut startup LoopFuse to provide lead generation technology available as a paid on-demand service or as open-source software installed on-site. And NTT DoCoMo is in talks with Google regarding an Android-based cell phone -- the same Android that yesterday left Sun vice president James Gosling saying Sun cannot yet take a position on Android because there is no data or business model for the much-hyped platform.
Notes from the field: While Web sites get hacked every day and, Cringe asserts, some might even deserve it, the frightening reality is that we in IT are now "looking at massive, well-organized plans to take over vast portions of the Net," he explains. The scariest, perhaps, is the year-old storm worm, still circulating and infecting machines, though they remain eerily quiet. "A security wonk of my acquaintance has an interesting theory on what these millions of zombie machines might be used for: the evil equivalent to SETI. But instead of parsing interstellar radio signals for signs of intelligent life, these millions of zombies could be put to other distributed computing tasks, like cracking complex passwords." Hackers gone wild. "The bad guys could merely rent their grid out to anyone with a Dr. Evil-ish scheme for world domination. Call it Storm Cloud Computing."
Save Windows XP: Sign the petition.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on January 24, 2008 10:54 AM
January 07, 2008 | Comments: (0)
Yes, there are reasons to buy Microsoft stock
Columnist's corner: It's hardly the latest and greatest of tech companies but, as Bill Snyder point out, the New Year kicks off with a pair of bullish notes on Microsoft. "What a pleasure it is to see something positive after the carnage of last week." Snyder is, of course, referring to word coming out of Global Equities Research and Goldman Sachs, the latter of which bumped its estimate by a penny a share. "Not a huge revision, but given the runup in Microsoft’s shares over the last year, her comment that the stock is still 'attractive' is significant," Snyder explains in Tech's Bottom Line.
Show of the week: CES is on in Las Vegas. Bill Gates kicked the show off with his final such keynote and a video self-parody that had everyone from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama denying him a job, while Jay-Z endured his attempts at rapping. On a more serious note, AMD lights Puma up with hybrid graphics that further its platform for notebook PCs, while HP goes high-definition with the new Pavilion HDX laptop. For continuing coverage, see our Geeks guide to CES. Related: Finding myself at CES '08.
Test Center review: What separates a security information manager from a basic log-file aggregator? Curtis Franklin asks just that, then continues that a SIM must go further. "Like many SIMs, the Symantec system improves with each new data point it has to chew on. Unlike many SIMs, Symantec's has its own Global Intelligence Network of analysts, experts, and OPSIMs (other people's SIMs) to throw into the intelligence mix," he writes in Symantec SIM brings friends. "The Symantec Security Information Manager 9650 is a solid piece of network security infrastructure that's in the prime of its product life: old enough for serious development to have taken place, but not past its peak."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on January 7, 2008 04:55 AM
December 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
How social media can help win the talent war
Best of the blogs: Hate it, love it, or a little bit of both, social media sets the imperative for all companies to compete for clients, customers and talent, Lena West asserts. "The tables have turned in more ways than one. Companies can no longer afford to compete on cash, bennies and perks. They need to be cool and hip -- or at the very least have a clue," West writes in Social media talent wars. "Companies that don't have a seat at the Internet's conversation table really are not part of the dialogue and good companies with bright futures are all too often being overlooked as potential employers."
From the InfoWorld Test Center: Taking a "unique and bold approach," Apple with its OS X Leopard Server brings a product that Tom Yager writes is "as easy to set up and run as a desktop." Yager adds in Leopard Server: The People's Unix that this latest incarnation "breaks from the previous Mac server -- and all server practices in general -- by placing a completely new emphasis on cutting edge network collaboration that includes blog, wiki, instant messaging, calendar and scheduling, and address book. Sure, that's a trick that Linux or Windows can pull off, but Apple's spin is unique." Related review: Mac OS X Leopard a perfect 10.
Careers: Counter-offers can be dangerous, particularly when you have another option in hand and try to pull one out of a current boss. "Sometimes, accepting a counter to stay works out," Nick Corcodilos writes in Is a counteroffer a death sentence? "But you must ask, if your boss matches the other offer and you stay, will he regard you suspiciously? Take the increase he gives you out of future raises? If your boss gives you a counter and you stay, there's no telling whether he will hold a grudge."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 19, 2007 10:40 AM
December 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Good tech stocks for a bad economy
Tech's bottom line: Picking stocks is difficult in the best of times. Making things even trickier, "it's been a Maalox, or maybe even a Xanax, couple of months," Bill Snyder writes. "Investors have been whipsawed by market tumbles sparked by the still out-of-control mortgage mess." And it's not going calm anytime soon. Good tech stocks for a bad economy. Yes, Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Xerox are among those. Just as important are knowing which to avoid, the companies that "aren't necessarily bad investments. But they have a history of performing badly during an economic downturn. At other times, they may well be worth considering."
The news beat: Google develops a Wikipedia rival, currently in an invite-only beta, that unlike the original will feature bylined entries. Gateway says that CEO Ed Coleman will step down at January's end, thereby clearing the way for the head of Acer's Pan-American unit to take over. After online criminals used the security hole for attacks, Apple patches another QuickTime flaw, it's eighth fix this year. And AMD CEO Hector Ruiz said "we blew it," in 2007, and "we're very humbled and we learned from it."
Security: Roger Grimes can understand why Web sites like self-service password reset. "It's the incredible weakening of security that bothers me," he writes. The problem, of course, is the questions, which often consist of information known by lots of people, or even answers that can be found by searching the Internet. "If a Web site under your control has one of these password reset features that use self-service, make sure the questions are truly capable of being known by only one person," he espouses. In other words: Ask better password questions. "Assume that the person's closest loved one ends up being their worst enemy and is motivated to break into their account. If you want to be assured of the strength of your question, or at least give the user a fighting chance of staying secure, let them choose and input the security questions."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 14, 2007 10:41 AM
December 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)
A stocking full of tech trends
Columnist's corner: As this year starts winding down, the time is upon us to look at what matters most in tech, particularly the megatrends holding potential to affect your job or career. Morgan Stanley does just that in an annual report. "It's provocative, but we'll take it with a grain of salt," David Margulius writes in this week's Enterprise Insight. U.S. IT spending as a percentage of corporate capital expenditures is back up to 50 percent and climbing, Margulius reports, though most of the action is taking place outside The States. "There are new growth opportunities everywhere you turn."
Sustainable IT: We're seeing more and more companies hop on the green IT bus, the latest being Cisco, with its CUD, as in Connected Urban Development. CUD, part of the William J. Clinton Foundation's Global Initiative, is designed to apply technology to challenges facing cities in regards to climate change. "Cisco is clearly serious about the projects, because it's committed $15 million to CUD and enlisted the brainpower of engineers from MIT," Ted Samson reports in Cisco seeds green innovations aimed at climate change. But Cisco isn't investing in CUD entirely for altruistic reasons. "These projects give the company an opportunity to showcase its technology and, the company explains, "build a much better relationship with cities and local government, and to open new markets." For which, Samson adds, "I certainly don't begrudge Cisco."
The news beat: IBM researchers build a supercomputer on a chip with technology called silicon nanophotonics that replaces some of the wires on a chip with pulses of light for more efficient data transfers between cores. Cisco warns Windows users of a bug in its Cisco Security Agent desktop software that could let hackers create a buffer overflow and crash a PC. Oracle buys Moniforce, a Dutch maker of Web application performance management software, and says it will add the acquired technology to its own Enterprise Manager tool. And open source project-hosting site SourceForge opens an eBay-like marketplace so users can offer support services for sale.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on December 6, 2007 10:28 AM
November 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Refuting the dire need for more H-1B visas
Best of the blogs: While the myths that the U.S. is not graduating enough science and engineering majors and overall performance of high school students is declining in math and science typically serve as evidence presented by those calling for more H-1B visas, a study by The Urban Institute refutes those claims. "U.S. students have generally performed above average in comparisons with students in other industrialized nations," the report states, adding that "the education system produces qualified graduates far in excess of demand." Ephraim Schwartz points out that, "this doesn't seem to stop the steady drumbeat from high tech executives who keep saying over and over again that there is a shortage both in qualified computer science graduates now and in the pipeline in our schools to meet future needs."
Test Center review: The full review of Leopard is here and, in Tom Yager's words, it surpasses Tiger, which no one was unhappy with at all. "Leopard is a rung above perfection. It's taken as rote that the Mac blows away PC users' expectations. Leopard blows away Mac users' expectations, and that's saying a great deal." Perfecting perfection: Mac OS X Leopard, part 1. What's more, Yager adds, "consideration for the user permeates to every nook of this remarkable operating system, as you'll see in the second and final part of this review."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on November 26, 2007 04:54 AM
November 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Vendors fail to communicate, customers pay
Gripe Line: On the day AT&T was supposed to turn on a reader's company's new T3 telecom service, he found that the carrier "has so many people involved that no two of them have a clue what is going on." Mixed signals started early, to be sure. AT&T fails to communicate. Two weeks before the big day, AT&T documents stated the previously identified frame relay circuits were to be ATM. After myriad confirmations, the reader doesn't even get frame relay, but PPP. And the disasters keep on coming, such that days later only part of the new service was up. "It's not just AT&T. IBM contractors are giving me the same types of headaches -- six people on a conference call and none of them actually DO anything. They are all project managers that don't really get it."
Best of the blogs: Google's Android mobile development platform is ambitious, yes, but the odds for success are long. "Android's mission is so astonishingly broad that it will likely take years before it is realized in a handset," Tom Yager asserts in this Tech Watch post. The early SDK addresses a significant pain point for cross-platform mobile application developers: the GUI. Of course it's still young and, as such, has a somewhat limited set of widgets. "Google's aspirations are admirable, but the likelihood of Android succeeding as a full metal-to-screen platform, while parallel efforts are being worked by vendors with traction and experience, is fairly slim."
The news beat: Microsoft readies the Stirling console for managing all its Forefront enterprise security products for desktops. At Oracle OpenWorld, Cisco announces the RDS (Reliable Datagram Sockets), a protocol it developed with Oracle to run databases over large server clusters. Apple and a Chinese telecom are in talks to sell the iPhone in China, though China Mobile's CEO does not like handset makers' desire to share revenue with operators. And Microsoft and the GSM association promote 3G laptops by hosting a contest challenging companies to design mobile phone-like connectivity into easy-to-use notebook PCs.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on November 13, 2007 10:39 AM
October 16, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The alien mindset of corporate culture
Gripe Line: Apple's deliberate use of an update to cripple iPhones running so-called unauthorized software is the latest in a long string of instances involving a vendor that acts "as if it can do whatever it wishes with its products after we buy them," Ed Foster explains. "It's enough of a trend that, even before the Apple story heated up, one reader was already contemplating it as a result of a stealth update from another megacorporation -- Microsoft." All your products belong to us. The price for these companies, and others including Intuit and Sony, is an open question. "It's scary to think how far this trend of vendors thinking they own the products we buy from them might go."
The news beat: As expected, Microsoft launches Office Communications Server 2007 today and details how it will arm the software to work more closely with office phone systems. Sun issues informational updates on open source efforts, including OpenSolaris, Java and GlassFish, in a conference that one executive said brings together all the people working on open source within the company. Chipmaker Intel disbands its Verified by Intel standardization program, claiming it met the stated objectives. And Apple faces a potential lawsuit from the Center for Environmental Health over toxins found in iPhones.
Feature well: Measuring and reducing technological risks is a big job. A strong plan, the right skills and, of course, a good set of tools can help. "The time and skills necessary for effective security assessment will never be free, but a terrific plan and excellent tools are readily available at no cost, courtesy of the open source community," Tom Bowers explains in IT's best free security tools. These are free in upfront cost -- but not in resources or manpower allocated toward them, so "be prepared to spend time learning how to use open source tools and techniques properly."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on October 16, 2007 04:38 AM
October 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Cringe: Give thanks for Larry Ellison
Notes from the field: Always one to weigh in, Cringely today writes "Thank God for Larry Ellison," in reference to Oracle's proposed acquisition of BEA Systems. "Larry 'I can't believe I ate the whole thing' Ellison has long coveted BEA, which you can tell by how he's trash talked them over the years," Cringe explains in Oracle to BEA: Better get a bucket. "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a roller coaster ride."
The InfoWorld News Quiz: Perhaps you think you do, but you don't know tech. Am I wrong? Prove it. Here's one for you: Apple is being sued over the iPhone -- again. What's the charge this time, officer? You'll have to answer a pair of questions to even get at that one. Test your knowledge here.
Security: No question, there is plenty of room for new and improved technologies in the security realm. Bearing that in mind, our sister publication Network World pinpoints the Top 10 security companies to watch. It starts with 2Factor, a provider of real privacy management -- an idea, at the very least, whose time has clearly come. Related: When best security practices go bad.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on October 15, 2007 10:25 AM
October 11, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The changing face of globalization
Best of the blogs: As the term becomes more ubiquitous in the technology realm, Ephraim Schwartz reminds us that "it's important to remember the concept of globalization does not simply refer to companies with worldwide reach ... Rather, it represents a complete cross-fertilization where companies have global integration of their workforces, their markets and perhaps over time, their identities." Globalization takes on a new look. "It boils down to an execution play. The U.S. companies seeking out India and the Indian companies coming here understand their respective strengths. Some will pull it off, but some endeavors will turn out so disastrous that they will become the stories of legend of what can go wrong."
Columnist's corner: With a solid three weeks before Leopard comes and both an Xserve and Mac Pro waiting for it, Tom Yager is looking toward the next best thing to OS X. "As an aside, when I broach this subject, I always draw comments from readers who tell me that dude, if I want to run OS X on an AMD machine, it can be done," he writes. Back to that OS X alternative. "While Solaris has none of the no-brainer usability and manageability of OS X client and server OSes, I'm finding Solaris to be an increasingly comfortable workmate with enough similarities to OS X to deserve some attention."
Notes from the field: Nearly echoing Warren Zevon, Cringe titles his latest Lawyers, guns and the RIAA. "Apparently somebody at the RIAA really believes the cliche that there is no such thing as bad press. That somebody is a dumbass," he writes. "What really tweaks me is the RIAA argument that file swapping steals money out of artists' pockets. The notion that someone who downloaded 1000 songs from Kazaa would have otherwise paid $990 for them on iTunes (or dropped $10,000+ to get the same songs on CD) is flat-out stupid."
Video: What are startups' dream employees really like? It's a pertinent question that Bill Snyder addresses by going right to the source: C-level execs at six fledgling companies. Answers range widely, but motivation and passion for technology and growing companies, not to mention hard tech skills, come up in multiple conversations. Oh yes, and "we are really in the age of rich Internet applications." Watch it here. Related: Where the jobs are: Hot startups for techies.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on October 11, 2007 04:00 AM
October 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
The truth about military- style IT management
Careers: While many people loosely apply the word 'militaristic' to corporate management styles, one reader explains that, "people who have never been in the military haven't a clue what it's really like ... I have found the military to be the most Demming-like organization for which I've ever worked. A close second was organizations run by ex-military officers." To which Bob Lewis waxes historical in this Advice Line post. "Military leadership training before and during the Vietnam War was quite bad. Following the fiasco, the military figured out what it needed to do differently and implemented deep and substantive changes in how it trains officers."
From the Test Center: Open source has spread roots into content management systems, so we look at five free offerings from Alfresco, DotNetNuke, Drupal, Plone, and Joomla. "Across these products you'll probably discover overall cost savings compared to their commercial counterparts. That, and open source products' continuous feature and usability improvements, can make them a very good fit for particular enterprise Web or document management projects," explains Mike Heck in Open source CMSes well worth the price. There are, however, shortcomings to be aware of. "Think carefully about each product's nucleus, and how that fits with your existing infrastructure, commercial or open source."
Feature well: Startups are back and this time they've brought a new set of rules. "For better or worse, Web 2.0 has helped unleash a perfect storm of job opportunities," says Stephen Pickett, former president of the Society for Information Management, quoted in How to get a job at a hot startup. But this new environment doesn't mean IT pros can get greedy just yet. Related: A sampling of fresh startup jobs, and How to avoid jobs ripe for outsourcing.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on October 9, 2007 04:53 AM
October 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Zen and the art of IT budgeting
Best of the blogs: Every CIO's and CTO's least favorite task is also one that tends to snag an inordinate amount of their time. Jon Williams, of our NY CTO blog, used to treat budgets "as an annoying task to be gotten out of the way." Then something of an epiphany occurred, he explains in Budget Zen. "I realized that the budget was the tool I could use to influence technology change." That's because you've got the business's attention and that presents an ideal opportunity to engage them in new initiatives, technologies, plans and investments.
Security: Looking at hacking utilities, Roger Grimes discusses SRI International's Cyber-Threat Analytics BotHunter Malware Analysis, as well as Cain & Able. Cool tools for hacker trackers. "Every system administrator I know thinks their network is like Swiss cheese." Which might explain why hackers really don't require such tools. "They can do what they need without easy-to-use GUIs."
Storage: Caching just might be the second oldest computing practice. "I'm pretty sure that the concept is about as old as computing itself," Mario Apicella writes. Even still, it remains an effective way to reduce I/O times. But such products can be price-prohibitive. That's where UpTempo comes in, Apicella explains in DataCore revs up apps with memory caching. "What really matters is how much UpTempo can speed up your Windows servers."
Careers: The self-proclaimed "anti-resume man" speaks in front of 150 resume writers. Then Nick Corcodilos goes so far as to title a post about it Resume blasphemy. "I was heartened by the interest many have in helping people communicate their value; not just their credentials," he writes. "I suggested that my resume should not be about me. It should be about the company I want to work for -- and it should specifically show how I'm going to help it become more successful and profitable."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on October 1, 2007 04:54 AM
September 07, 2007 | Comments: (0)
When rebates land in the dumpster
Best of the blogs: Just about everybody knows what a headache collecting rebates can be and, as Ed Foster reports in this Gripe Line post, some folks suspect they just get thrown away when vendors prefer not to pay. "But now there's proof," he writes. Vastech, in fact, was caught red-handed, and red-faced, for trashing some 1,300 requests. "The incident adds fuel to our long-running debate about whether mail-in rebates of this sort should be eliminated."
Video: A fresh look at Apple's bevy of new and updated iPods. There's the iPod Touch, which looks like the iPhone but has no telephone capabilities, and the iPod Classic. "Apple has done something they have not done in a while, they've given existing iPod owners a reason to upgrade," explains PCWorld's Melissa Perenson. Watch it here.
The news beat: IBM launches a free technical content syndication service that aims to extend content to Web platforms including Google, Yahoo, NetView and iPhone, via developer gizmos. Financially motivated malware thrives as automated software packages make it easier for even unskilled hackers. Discussions are now underway to put Intel into OLPC's $100 laptop. And mobile business applications middleware is starting to catch on, an approach that advocates claim results in more mature wireless services.
Notes from the field: It's Friday, so that means another of Cringely's geek week in review episodes. This week's incidents, in order: Nolo mojo, blind justice, sowing his wild oats, the spamski what amski and, finally, goodbye rupee Tuesday.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on September 7, 2007 11:06 AM
August 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)
IT not immune to credit meltdown
Columnist's corner: It's a question that many of you are asking: Should IT care about the credit meltdown? "As IT professionals, we'll be the last ones to know where the bad loans are buried. But we can at least be prepared for the likely fallout," advises David Margulius. "I don't want to be Dr. Doom, but it's best to peek under the rug and be proactive." It never hurts to polish the ol' resume, either.
Gripe Line: Government bureaucracies are particularly prone to taking the IE-only approach, Ed Foster suggests in Reader voices: Institutional IE. And it's not just in the U.S. "Of course, there are always ways to get around what the government wants you to do." The Firefox IE Tab extension is one.
Security: The countdown to database timing attacks has begun. Core Security researcher Ariel Waissbein, in fact, has a proof-of-concept exercise that enables an attacker to extract private data from a database by performing mere record insertion operations, Matt Hines reports. The attack takes advantage of the fact that databases typically are designed to make data available to applications in the most efficient manner. "All the entries in a particular column in the database typically have the same values, so they can be unearthed by going after the stored information in the different nodes of a tree."
App dev: Calling backward compatibility with Windows versions from 15 years ago "one of the banes of my existence," Martin Heller shares three tactics he uses for doing just that. The first is pre-emptive, the third a matter of testing. "It's still a pain in the neck, however."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 17, 2007 04:41 AM
August 15, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Best of the blogs: Here's one technology professionals don't see so often: IT serving as a profit center and, mind you, not merely an expense unit. "It looks great in the PowerPoint, and it generally works the way so many PowerPoint concepts work -- perfectly, except for the unintended but easily predicted consequences," Lewis writes. Transfer that to the real world of back offices and datacenters, though, and it's not quite that easy. "It isn't all that different from trying to cure a disease by feeding poison to the patient."
Hardware: Call it a "mainframe on-a-rack." Tom Yager does just that in reference to IBM's Power6 processor. "Power6 eclipses Power5's performance and power efficiency," Yager writes in this week's installment of Ahead of the curve. But the potential exists for Big Blue to catch some heat about the chip's clock speed since it favored RAS over what Yager calls multicore mania. "I think that IBM made precisely the right decision. In fact, I'd like to see Intel and AMD back away from 'core wars' and start devoting on-CPU real estate to RAS."
The news beat: Just one day after VMware's indisputably successful IPO, Citrix buys XenSource for its desktop and server virtualization wares. Forrester Research issues a report suggesting that businesses are still saying no to Windows Vista, thanks in large part to software incompatibilities and the need for hardware upgrades. A newly-found security vulnerability within Yahoo Messenger could allow malware to run on a PC. And in response to kernel hacks pestering 64-bit Windows Vista, Microsoft updates Vista's PatchGuard, all the while denying that it is a security fix.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on August 15, 2007 11:25 AM
June 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Who actually pays for all that content?
Gripe Line: What with InfoWorld and other publications forging ahead into the world beyond print, Ed Foster raises the question about who pays for content -- and readers respond with some interesting thoughts. One concern was that aggregators such as Google and Yahoo pluck ad revenue without producing content. One less-than-optimistic site visitor wrote, "what I know to be true is that if there is no one investigating, gathering, sorting out fact from fiction, and if all the sources are just relying on each other, then democracy as we know it will no longer exist."
From the feature well: "The process of tracking down every piece of valuable company data -- and applying the appropriate tools to shield information from unwanted access or misuse -- remains in its beginning stages," writes Matt Hines in The struggle to protect enterprise data. The heart of the matter is visibility and, of course, blind spots. The good news? According to one analyst, "people are recognizing the problem." Retail giant Sears is but one example.
Careers: He's said it before and, in all likelihood, will repeat it more than once again. "One of the things that is your job, and that you must never shirk, delegate or otherwise avoid, is to set the tone," John West explains in this Leading from the Trenches post. Aimed at new leaders specifically, other tips include making a big push versus dribbling over time, being sensitive to change and when doing it the hard way is a must.
Notes from the field: Robert X. Cringely has a new nickname of sorts for Microsoft: The hole enchilada. "And people say Redmond has forgotten how to innovate," he writes, referring to a massive underground parking garage, four stories deep and four football fields long. Dubbed Microsoft Live Parking 1.0 by Cringe, who reports that it will be the second largest underground lot in the western hemisphere. "Soil removal is slated to be done by October, however sources say Microsoft is finding plenty of bugs in it, which may delay the lot's official launch until sometime in 2012."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on June 26, 2007 04:54 AM
June 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Notes from the field: Robert X. Cringely is keeping tabs and the count is now Geeks 1, Hollywood 0. The game to which he refers, of course, is being played out at Yahoo, where CEO Terry Semel just relinquished the helm to founder, and geek, Jerry Yang. "Talk around the water cooler is that Yahoo has a big red 'Acquire Me' sign on its back," Cringe reports in Yahoo's your daddy? "Look for Microsoft, Google, News Corp., or some other corporate monolith to line up with their knives and forks, ready to carve out a slice."
Columnist's corner: It might not be the first of the bigwigs to embrace Web 2.0 technologies, but by unveiling three major collaboration and social networking tools -- Quickr 8.0, Lotus Connections and IBM Infor 2.0 -- Big Blue lends gravitas to the Enterprise 2.0 trend. "My advice is to skip a few stages and figure out how to accommodate social networking and collaboration into your IT architecture now," Ephraim Schwartz explains. "If you can't, well, now that Big Blue is in the game, get out your checkbook; there's always IBM Global Technology Services."
Careers: Responding to Marc Andreesen's 'How to hire the best people you've ever worked with', Nick Corcodilos says that the three criteria Andreesen lays out "matter much, much more than any others," in Manhole covers don't cut it. Those are drive, curiosity and ethics. "But there's a catch to his approach: It requires a savvy interviewer. A manager who is highly motivated, curious, and ethical. That's where you start. Companies that have a problem with that will have a problem hiring."
The news beat: California's Attorney General Jerry Brown says that Microsoft will make 'significant changes' to the search functionality in Windows Vista. With its new iProcess Suite, Tibco links BPM to SOA. And McAfee sends Total Protection 2.0 into beta testing.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on June 20, 2007 05:18 AM
June 08, 2007 | Comments: (0)
EVGA rejects warranty for confidential reasons
GripeLine: It's bad enough when a vendor stiffs you on warranty repair, but as Ed Foster points out in today's blog, EVGA is adding injury by sending customers a form letter that says its refusal to honor its warranty was confidential.
Reviews: The Test Center offers up companion reviews: The Sun Fire X4500 server, nicknamed "Thumper," crams 48 drives into 4U and redefines storage performance -- as long as you run this behemoth on Solaris. And by breaking all the rules, Sun's innovative Zettabyte File System (ZFS) soars to new heights in scalability, reliability, and flexibility. (Also see the related screencast.)
News: AMD says that ultramobile PCs have been unsuccessful because they're too pricey and too power hungry. But the company is nonetheless exploring the prospects for ultramobiles, according to its CTO. An Intel VP observes that the functions that once required of multiple chips will increasingly be combined, but maintains that the chip set is not going to go away any time soon. And Baidu has formerly denied published reports that it has plans for an expansion into Europe. The search giant will continue to focus on China and its new site in Japan, execs say.
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Posted by Caroline Craig on June 8, 2007 05:31 AM
May 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Columnist's corner: The tiny country has been under cyber attack for three weeks now. The aggressor, Estonia's government believes, is Russia. Such an assault raises all kinds of questions, namely: whether or not the Kremlin is involved, if such a devastating econo-knockout punch is comparable to military aggression, and under what circumstances the U.S. would intervene, David Margulius writes in Cyberpunks: Pick on someone your own size. "As an IT manager, should you care about Estonia? Not particularly. Should you care about the possibility of geopolitical turmoil leading to cyberattacks affecting your company? You bet."
Startups: A crop of companies has sprouted in the last few years to help guard against data leaks, and Code Green is one such example. "We've gone from talking to companies who want to get educated," explains Chip Hay, senior vice president for marketing and customer care at Code Green. "Now they've decided that [they] want to put data leak prevention in place." The next iteration of Code Green's appliance will bring enhanced data fingerprinting for relational data, structured and flat files.
Video: At WinHEC Microsoft chairman Bill Gates discusses Windows Vista and Server 2008, the operating system formerly known as Longhorn. "We've been amazed at the customer response," Gates says, adding that Vista has sold nearly 40 million copies as of last week. Watch it here.
The news beat: Microsoft and Novell defend their partnership with claims that Microsoft is now Novell's most prominent channel partner. Dell begins shipping its first Linux PCs, pre-loaded with Ubuntu, along with a Linux Forum to guide users toward resources, help with troubleshooting. A Michigan man gets fined for hopping on a cafe's wireless network -- from his car parked outside. And Nokia says that it will add to its phones a feature that warns users when lightning is about to strike; exact timing for this one remains in the 'someday' realm, but the company has applied for a patent.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on May 24, 2007 10:45 AM
April 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Why IT and business are inseparable
Columnist's corner: Looking for the perfect example of why business and IT cannot be separate in your organization? Ephraim Schwartz has just that -- the best of breed vs. trusted partner debate. While many companies that do not need bleeding-edge technology can opt for the trusted partner approach, Schwartz asks how many can say they don't require the latest and greatest? That's precisely where best of breed comes into its own. "CIOs and CEOs will have to confront this issue sooner rather than later," Schwartz explains.
Hardware: Apple faced "the ugly reality of having neither product go out on time unless it called all hands on deck." The wares to which Tom Yager refers in The method behind Apple's madness are the iPhone and Leopard, the latter of which Apple this week said is now delayed. "I think it was an easy choice. iPhone is a non-product with an installed base of zero."
Careers: When most IT folks start out, they don't see the big picture because they're getting the job done, head down and all. At some point, though, vision will become paramount to a career. For starters, though, John West offers this tip: breathe normally and take enough time to do it right. What's vision and how do I get some?
The news beat: Verizon says it will offer CaaS later this year -- no, that's not a typo, it's short for computing-as-a-service. According to network security firm Support Intelligence major corporations are still serving up lots of spam. Microsoft says that, as of now anyway, it won't resell fuel-cell battery chargers. And IBM faces a slowdown in its U.S. enterprise business.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on April 18, 2007 04:56 AM
March 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
IT spending growth to slow in '07
The news beat: IT spending is expected to rise this year, but more slowly than it did in 2006, according to AnalystPerspectives. Hewlett-Packard keeps its PC momentum and continues pulling ahead of Dell. And Microsoft details a forthcoming phone and software package for SMBs, the Microsoft Response Point, which Ephraim Schwartz suggests could be a stalking horse for bigger things to come.
Special Report: Open source VoIP just might be enterprise-worthy. Plus, it brings considerable cost savings and flexibility. Summer Bay Resorts, for instance, found that "if the phone is the lifeblood of your business, Asterisk is more than up to the task," as Paul Venezia reports in this case study. Venezia also undertakes his own open source VoIP quest -- one that resulted in his whole lab and, ultimately, his whole house, running on a single Asterisk instance under VMware Server. Read the entire package. Or watch Venezia demonstrate Trixbox here.
Best of the blogs: Leading from the trenches author John West is looking for offices that we can all be jealous of. As in, the kind where one might say, "if I worked here, I might not go home." He's got examples from Google, Red Bull London and others, too.
Careers: A reader writes in to ask sage Bob Lewis to gauge whether a merger said reader is involved in will work, or not. Lewis offers up four cornerstones, beginning with cultural compatibility of course, that make for a good start. Another: personal opportunity for the employees.
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 20, 2007 04:57 AM
March 12, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Columnist's corner: Fresh from some what-if exercises in which IT honchos were stimulated to consider how best to prepare and respond in the event of various catastrophes, David Margulius is reeling from "the degree to which even a sophisticated group of senior managers can be thrown off guard by the unknown or the unexpected." The problem: too many folks are "anchored in 'what we know to be true.'" Crisis management 101. The real danger, indeed, is that whatever the next disruption -- be it natural disaster, terrorism, or nearly anything else -- it won't be obvious and easily understood while it's happening.
Videos: Dorf. That's not a typo, but it is something not everyone in IT knows about -- yet, that is. Mark Harris, director of Sophos Labs, discusses why it matters with senior editor Paul Roberts. "The real motivation [of malware authors] is now money, whether it be installing spyware, or some form of banking Trojan, or recruiting you into a botnet of comprised machines." What Harris is not seeing very often, however, is a host of new viruses. Harris also makes a prediction for the biggest security concern of 2007. Watch the interview here.
Security: Rarely are particular technologies singled out in general regulations, but that doesn't stop even some vendors from suggesting that, say, Winzip is not covered under HIPAA guidelines. "Although many people, including myself, could argue that this lack of specificity means security problems will keep occurring, the reality is that there are so many ways to protect computer data that no single recommendation would ever be complete enough," Roger Grimes explains in Have you read your regulations? So instead of taking a vendor's word for it, do what a lot of them don't. "It can never hurt to read the source documents that regulate your industry, even if they are boring and dry."
Posted by Tom Sullivan on March 12, 2007 04:09 AM
March 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)