The InformationWeek October 2007 Archive
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Could Your Next ERP System Come From China?

Ufida is a $150 million-a-year ERP company that's China's largest domestic enterprise software vendor. I talked with Ufida's VP of international business about its plan to come to the United States.

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Smaller Companies Optimistic On Growth, Tech Investments

Bullish on their growth prospects, many small and midsize companies are planning significant investments in such new technologies as storage VoIP, virtualization, and Wi-Fi.

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The Wall Street Journal's 10-Year-Old Advice For CIOs

General Motors CIO Ralph Szygenda has a terrific track record, and he and his work were profiled yesterday in the Journal. But the Journal really laid an egg with the GM/Szygenda piece by presenting a circa 1996 snapshot of the CIO position and the role of business technology. So if you recognize yourself in the image of the CIO presented by the Journal story, be afraid -- be very afraid.

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Flirting With Verizon, Google Drops 'Don't Be Evil' Pretense

The word "evil" is vastly overused these days. Here's a link to the "Top 10 Evil People in History," if you've got an afternoon to blow -- and I would never call a major U.S. wireless carrier "evil." Oligopolistic, predatory, bureaucratic, yes -- evil, no. So the idea of Google shacking up with Verizon Wireless doesn't exactly qualify as "Doing evil." But still.

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Business Users Want GPS In Their Smartphones

According to the latest J.D. Power and Associates survey of smartphone users, GPS tops the list of features that users want most in their smartphones. Looks like location is going to be one of the big wireless must-have features for mobile business in 2008.

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What Is Google Talking To The Carriers About?

Late yesterday it came to light that Google is in talks with Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile USA regarding its big mobile plans. Are they talking about the gPhone, or something else?

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Silicon Valley Crash Course: 14 Startups In 28 Hours

I just returned from a trip to earthquake land where I had one-on-one meetings with 14 tech startups in just over a day. Their products included a project-management app, e-mail marketing tool, widget maker, and PC database. The big unanswered question: Who needs them?

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Happy Halloween From The iPhone

Still can't decide what to wear as your Halloween costume this year? Why not dress up as an iPhone?

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The Zune Universe Expands, Where's The Bling?

If Microsoft wants to even catch a sliver of iPod's market share, it's going to have to build up its base of third-party accessories for its Zune music player... Oh, wait. That's just what they did this week.

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Pantech Duo Offers Windows Mobile In A Fun Form Factor

I spent the last two days with the Pantech Duo, a new 3G Windows Mobile 6 smartphone available from AT&T for $199 (with a two-year contract). Do you need a Helio Ocean-like smartphone that's ready for business?

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How To Get Gmail's IMAP, Leopard, And The iPhone Working Together

When I heard last week that Gmail is getting IMAP support, I was excited. My life was going to get a little easier. And how hard could it be to set up? Change a couple of settings in Apple Mail and I'd be good to go, right?

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Is The Web Headed For Meltdown 2.0?

In recent months I've seen a lot of anxiety in the tech marketplace. Bloggers, pundits, and industry insiders all seem to suggest that Web 2.0 is headed for Correction 2.0. Are we in the middle of another bubble?

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Is Apple's Leopard Worth the Leap?

Apple is making headway in the enterprise environment. But is Leopard, the sixth major release of Apple's Mac OS X operating system, worth an IT manager's consideration?

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Mapmaker, Mapmaker, Make Me A Map (And Please Entertain My Takeover Bid)

It's a good time to be a mapmaker. As the digital mapping industry undergoes some serious consolidation with mergers and acquisitions, today Garmin threw a wrench into TomTom's bid for Tele Atlas by offering 15% more. A sign that GPS, LBS, and navigation apps are on the verge of exploding?

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Security Threats Meet Business Treats

Having written so much about the horrors small and midsized businesses face for our two-part Halloween business terrors feature, I couldn't resist the temptation to give some thought to technology treats.

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Google Phone (Legend) Lives

What has become the Loch Ness Monster of the mobile phone world, the Google Phone, is once again purported to exist.

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The Three Opens, Pt. 1: Open-Source OS

There's been a lot of talk about the three big "open"s in the computing world today -- open-source OSes, open-source applications, and open standards.  I'm going to talk about each one of these things in turn over the course of the next few blog posts, and examine how they fit together and complement each other.

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Eye-Fi Stuffs Wi-Fi Radio Into An SD Card, Enables Wireless Storage

You might be scratching your head wondering why on earth you want an SD card with a Wi-Fi radio, but just think of the wonderful uses. Now you can beam your pictures straight to your favorite photo sharing site without editing them first!

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Free Security Tech Support: Treat Yourself (And Your Computer) On Halloween

Security Company CyberDefender's offering free phone-in technical support for one day only -- and that day's tomorrow, October 31. How's that for a Halloween treat?

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Google Announces That It Is Going To Make An Announcement Regarding Its Mobile Plans

Announcements about announcements crack me up. The only reason this one is worth paying attention to is because it is Google, and the subject of the announcement will be its future mobile plans. Specifically, products and services it hopes to have in the market by mid 2008.

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Woops, Says Microsoft, Sorry for That Unauthorized Install

IT managers who subscribe to Microsoft Windows Server Update Services program but didn't choose the automatic updates setting must have thought the desktops on their networks had taken a page from HAL.

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Gigabit Ethernet Ready to Move into the Small and Medium Business Mainstream?

Are your networking needs growing so fast that you need lots more bandwidth? If so, 3Com has two products, the Baseline Switch 2900 Plus Family and OfficeConnect managed Gigabit PoE Switch, that you may want to take look at.

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Shovels As A Service In The Social Networking Gold Rush

For this week's feature on Web 2.0 in the enterprise, we counted 17 startups that offer social networking platforms. I don't mean social networking sites (there are thousands of those), but companies touting technology for the FaceBook and MySpace wannabes.

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MySpace Cofounder Lies About His Age

Tom Anderson, cofounder of MySpace, is five years older than he claims.

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Join Us For GridTalk With The Creators Of The Greenies

Join us for GridTalk on Tuesday when our special guest will be Jonathan Himoff of Rezzables, the company behind the Greenies and about 20 other of the most popular and innovative areas in Second Life. He'll talk about business, community building, and creativity in Second Life, as well as where his company gets those crazy ideas.

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No Cash Please, We're Apple

Believe it or not, Apple has decided not to accept cash from people buying an iPhone. That's right, your money's no good at an Apple store.

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Broadband Providers Nix Sticks

Testimony before a House subcommittee last week reiterated what we already knew: fewer people in the United States have broadband Internet access than in several other countries, and rural areas of the United States have even less access to broadband than urban areas. They're called "the sticks" for a reason: rural America gets this one stuck to it, too, as it does on a lot of other social, economic, and technical issues.

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Why Run Leopard On A PC? A Hacker Explains

In writing an article about how hackers had gotten Apple's new Leopard operating system to run on PCs, I corresponded with the individual responsible for posting a how-to-guide for creating a "hackintosh." The person who posted the how-to-guide goes by the forum name BrazilMAC and since he responded to my query at length, it seemed appropriate to provide his reply here, mainly because it provides insight into why people hack.

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Expect The Worst With Your Leopard Upgrade

When upgrading your operating system, expect the worst. Expect that your system won't boot. Expect your favorite applications won't run. Expect that your essential documents will be deleted or inaccessible. Also, your dog will get pregnant, the milk in your fridge will go sour, and you'll wake up with a big zit on your nose and run into your high-school sweetheart later that day.

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Startup Makes Bold Spam-Fighting Claims

Abaca, a startup that launched at last week's Interop NY show, claims to have developed a new approach to spam filtering that guarantees a minimum of 99 percent accuracy.

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Notes from PUG: Video Conferencing Marches On

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T-Mobile Wants You To Jump At Its Shadow

T-Mobile's latest Windows Mobile smartphone bucks the utilitarian integument of other devices and dons some sharper duds. It's about the size of a BlackBerry Pearl, and should tempt enterprise and consumer users alike.

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Microsoft Wants to Stick XP on XOs

Like an uninvited birthday party guest who shows up on the wrong date with an unwanted gift, Microsoft is "working to adapt a basic version of Windows XP so it is compatible with the non-profit One Laptop per Child Foundation's small green- and-white XO laptop."

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Is Facebook One Social Network Or An Aggregator Of Social Networks?

Last week The Economist took Facebook and other social networks to task, questioning their real value and their potential to scale. Is Facebook headed for a brick wall?

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Should You Replace Microsoft Office with an Online App?

What feels like the sudden arrival of a multitude of online app options -- like Google or Zoho -- has allowed IT managers to ponder a move they would never have even considered just a short while ago: Replace Microsoft Office with an online office suite.

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Want To Use That New Gift Card To Buy An iPhone? Apple Won't Let You Do That, Either

Wow, Apple must really be trying to alienate its customers. Not only can people no longer pay cash for iPhones, but you can't even bring in a stack of Apple gift cards to pay for an iPhone -- even if those gift cards were paid for by credit cards.

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Mobile Broadband Is A Mix-and-Match Affair

"The Future of Wireless Broadband" was the first session I attended at last week's Mobile Business Expo at Interop in New York And the first thing I learned was that the adoption of wireless broadband isn't going to be a simple matter of clear winners and losers.

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Apple's Leopard Hacked So You Can Install It On Your PC, But Why Would You Want To?

It took a less than 24 hours for an Apple enthusiast site to weigh in with a hack recipe on how to "install Leopard on your PC in 3 easy steps." The big question is, why would anyone want to, given that Windows Vista is almost -- but not quite -- as pretty as the latest incarnation of OS X. The answer, clearly, is to see if it can be done.

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Second Life Lawsuit Over Cybersex Toy Theft

You know it had to come to this eventually in the reality substitute called Second Life: Thieves are stealing virtual people's virtual crap, and reselling it to other avatars for real money. And when they're caught red-handed, they've got this great defense -- how can it be criminal, it's only a video game?

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My Favorite (Open-Source) Things: MPlayer

Since this blog does get filed under the category Open Source, I thought I'd take time out here and there to talk about some of my favorite open-source applications, not just Linux (or OSes in general).  I'll start with an app that has breathed unexpected new life into some of my DVDs: MPlayer.

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Want To Pay Cash For An iPhone? Apple Won't Let You

In an apparent effort to curb the reselling of unlocked iPhones, Apple has instituted a new policy that forbids customers from paying cash--you know, the stuff that says "legal tender for all debts public and private"--for iPhones. And it has dropped the limit to two per person.

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Liveblogging The Leopard Upgrade

My wife and I just got back from geek date night: A visit to the local Apple retailer to pick up a copy of Leopard, along with some other schwag, followed by dinner at Souplantation. We like to live large, my wife and I. I'm about to jump in to upgrading this system to Leopard. Bookmark this page for the thrilling play-by-play.

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"Did I Mention It Was Free?"

Scott McNealy took his "software wants to be free" act to the NICSA Technology Summit 2007 in Las Vegas, even featuring a showman's hypnotic cadence. And it was a fine presentation, if you believe one thing: Open Source = Sun Microsystems.

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Facebook Is Only Warming Up

This was Facebook's week. The golden child of Web 2.0 scored a $240 investment deal from Microsoft, launched a new mobile application for the BlackBerry, and was even rumored to have closed two more investments from hedge funds worth an additional $500 million. Can Facebook do no wrong?

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Oracle's Linux: Unbreakable? Or Just A Necessary Adjustment?

As I talked to Wim Coekaerts, VP of Linux engineering at Oracle, about "Unbreakable Linux," a gap emerged between what he was saying and what Red Hat's product management director, Joel Berman, was saying. Riders of Linux's impressive upsurge are advised to "mind the gap" and try not to fall into it.

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Facebook's Business Technology Future

Doubtful that Facebook execs will lose too much sleep over what business IT teams want and need from social networking. But that's where last week's big Facebook hook-ups just might get interesting. Its new partners, Microsoft and Research In Motion, have a deep understanding of how business IT works.

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The Next Generation Tech Worker

CIOs need to decide: Where is the training going to come from -- self instruction, corporate programs, academia, or some combination thereof?

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AT&T Punts MediaFLO Proving Mobile TV Still Isn't Ready For Primetime

It looks like AT&T Mobility has delayed the launch of its MediaFLO mobile TV service until sometime in "early 2008." Will mobile TV ever really take off?

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6 Problems With Mac OS X Leopard

While Leopard is a significant improvement over previous Mac OS X releases, it has some notable shortcomings. IPhone users, database developers, people still running Classic Mac apps, and folks who are obsessive about backing up will find some disappointments. Read on for a roundup of six Leopard problems.

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How Dumb Is Too Dumb To Operate a Computer?

Over at GnuCitizen.org, Petko D. Petkov makes it clear that computer users are the weak link in Internet security. In a blog post, Petkov points out that the term "drive-by download," as defined by Wikipedia, doesn't quite work.

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IT Workers to Management: Show Us More Money!

Tech pay is approaching an all-time high according to a recent survey. Yet IT workers are not happy with their salaries, according to another survey. What gives?

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Should Employees Experiment with Software, Mobile Devices on Company PCs?

How much leeway should IT managers give employees? In a debate-style Wall Street Journal Online interview with two CIOs, one kept using phrases like "controlled" and "tightly managed." The other was from Google.

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Why Cigna Chose Startup For Key Security Function

Getting a foot in the door of big business is the hardest part of being a tech startup. So how did Aveksa, a 3-year-old software company, land a deal with Cigna? It had the right application at the right time to help the health insurer fill a gap in its IT security strategy.

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Thoughts On The World's Obsession With Google

People are so curious about Google. Whenever we post images of Google offices, like the photos I took of its new digs in Ann Arbor, Mich., they draw readers like bees to honey.

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CTIA Wrap Up. What Really Happened This Week?

The lack of real news and even any sort of buzz at this fall's CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment show was a real disappointment. While Microsoft's announcement is certainly noteworthy, nothing set the show on fire. Hell, the parties were barely fun.

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Mobile Business Expo: Mobile Business Applications Are Here And They're Delivering Value

Yesterday at Mobile Business Expo (MBX), we took the deep dive into mobile business applications. Not only are businesses deploying applications other than mobile e-mail, many of these applications are powerful and they deliver real ROI.

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Sure, Apple's 'Leopard' Is Overhyped -- But Here's Why It Matters Anyway

The Apple community is giving Leopard the lite version of the hype orgy that the iPhone received four months ago. All this for a mere software dot-release. It's easy for a sensible person to dismiss the whole thing as flummery, but in fact there are some meaty new benefits to Leopard that are worth looking forward to.

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EU 'Blue Card' For Techies Could Give U.S. A Black Eye

Is the United States locking the door and nailing it shut to foreign tech talent while Europe is getting ready to roll out the red carpet? Some people think so.

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Mobile Business Expo: Mobile 2.0 Crosses Consumer Apps With The Business World

We just concluded our last plenary session at Mobile Business Expo, "Mobile Business 2.0: The True Promise Of Wireless." It looks like Web 2.0 consumer trends are shaping business mobility more than I thought.

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'CSI: NY''s Second Life Adventure Was Delightful -- But Not Revolutionary. At Least Not Yet.

CSI: NY's episode in Second Life was a total blast. I went into it with pretty low expectations, and was delighted throughout. It was a heck of a lot of fun -- and it got Second Life right in spirit, even though the SL portrayed on the show was much faster, more stable, and had much better graphics than the real thing.

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Net Security Woes Grows

A new report that focuses on the security challenges facing small and midsized businesses shines a light on just how big those challenges are -- and which ones you may be overlooking.

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Photoshop For Linux? Don't Hold Your Breath

There's a few applications that would help make Linux more of a mainstream OS, but don't expect to see them ported to Linux anytime soon.  One of the least discussed in this fashion?  Adobe Photoshop.

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Cease And Desist? A Music Publisher Responds

On Monday, I reported that IMSLP, a volunteer Web site that offered copies of music scores that were (or had been perceived to be) in the public domain, had gone down because of two cease-and-desist letters from music publisher Universal Edition. On Wednesday, I received a reply from UE.

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Report From Interop: Mobile Instant Messaging Is Here To Stay

There's no hiding from it. Mobile instant messaging is creeping into the enterprise whether IT departments like it or not. Enterprises can embrace it or resist it, but they won't be able to prevent a new generation entering the workforce from using mobile IM and other less traditional collaboration tools.

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Interop Winners: Desktop Conferencing, Deep Security

It's a purely unscientific and anecdotal perspective, but here are my picks for most interesting and most needed technologies from Interop this week, plus the most startling stat I heard in my New York City travels.

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Opera Ups The Mobile Browser War Ante. Again

The people over at Opera Software can't seem to stop innovating. Their latest contribution to the mobile industry is a service that reflects all your PC-based browser settings -- including bookmarks -- on whatever mobile device you happen to be using.

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Mobile Business Expo: Tips For Building Business Mobility Strategies

While everyone talks about mobile strategy plans, it seems we all need help when it comes time how to craft them. In an attempt to help CIOs and IT managers better think about mobility I sat down with Philippe Winthrop, Research Director -- Wireless and Mobility, Aberdeen Group, at Mobile Business Expo to come up with some useful tips for this special edition of Take 5.

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Hop on the Wiki Express

Before the Web 2.0 express passes you by and leaves you dazed in the dust, know there is a way for you to hop on its wagon: wikis.

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Green Data Centers Equal A Greener Bottom Line

Think building an eco-friendly data center is just for tree huggers? Think again -- for IBM and other pinstriped redoubts, it's all about boosting the bottom line.

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Can Microsoft Catch Its Cool?

In a recent series of popular video ads, Apple portrayed itself as a young, hip guy challenging Microsoft's stodgy businessman. While that was an obvious marketing ploy, it is true that Apple (and Linux) users are often thought of as cooler than those who employ Microsoft Windows. How come?

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NAC Gets Knocked Around

"The vast majority of companies are deploying network access control (NAC) technology as a means of securing their endpoints -- but they aren't all happy about it," reads "Is NAC Dying?"

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Telepresence Doesn't Have To Cost A Fortune

The concept of "telepresence" is brilliant when it comes to meeting your peers face-to-face without ever having to step foot on an airplane. But not many companies are willing to shell out $300,000 to put such a system in place. That's why one startup, called LifeSize, caught my attention at Interop when it showed off its affordable high definition videoconferencing system.

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Shallow Victory for the Federal Government

Whether you realize it or not, John Zuccarini, a notorious scam artist, represents a threat to your online business. His cyberspace businesses illustrate the problems that the government must overcome to make it a safe haven for reputable enterprises.

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Who's Afraid Of Web 2.0?

CIOs are -- and they should be, according to a leading IBM researcher. IT needs to get off its cost-containment hobby horse and start mashing up-- or end users will do it for them.

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Cybersecurity Redux: How Appealing Is Free Beer For The Rest Of Your Life?

Your head of security calls you at 3 a.m. to tell you that a company laptop stuffed with thousands of personal-data records has been stolen. To get that laptop back safely, what would you be willing to offer: How about a lifetime supply of beer?

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Google Takes No Prisoners

Google today began giving its Gmail users access to IMAP, an e-mail protocol that allows users to synchronize their e-mail across multiple devices. While Google's announcement is likely to be appreciated by users of Apple's iPhone (which supports IMAP) and business users, what's particularly noteworthy about the news is how Keith Coleman, Gmail product manager, describes Google's intentions.

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Google Maps And Twitter Are Essential Information Resources For California Fires

The immediate threat seems to have passed for my wife and me here in San Diego, as fires ravage Southern California. But it's still essential for us to keep an eye on the situation. The TV news is first-rate for getting an overview. But Google Maps and Twitter provide a running answer to the question that's most important to me and my wife: Is our neighborhood and our house in any immediate danger?

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Five Ways To Get Your (Corporate) Wiki On

Wikis are a great source of constantly updated, widely accessible information for consumers. But enterprise use is limited. So here's five simple steps to encourage wiki adoption in your company, courtesy of an Interop speaker.

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EBay Is Retirement Plan Of Last Resort For Aging Rockers

Once the glory has faded and your music is most fondly recalled by folks north of 40, all some rockers have left are their memories. So when they need some extra coin, and a reunion concert or small-venue tour won't be on until next summer, they can always turn to their collection of instruments. Fortunately, these days they don't have to hock them; there's eBay.

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Not Just India And China Vying For U.S. Tech Jobs

Touring the exhibit hall at OutsourceWorld New York this morning, I was struck by the number of booths touting services from vendors in countries beyond the usual suspects. Outsourcing, and IT jobs, are truly going global.

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7 Steps To A Greener Data Center

Next to labor, energy represents the biggest expense associated with running a data center. On Wednesday, Interop attendees learned ways to reduce those costs and save thousands of dollars.

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Mobile Business Expo: Microsoft's New Mobile Platform May Be WinMo's Tipping Point

Microsoft delivered a potential body blow to the mobile business market yesterday with a new mobility platform designed to make Windows Mobile the de facto standard for IT. Will this be Microsoft's mobile tipping point?

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Of Credit Crunches, Housing Busts, and IT Budgets

Are you in the process of setting your 2008 IT budget? Are you having any fun yet?

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At Interop, Enterprise Sometimes Follows The LIttle Guys

While the big bucks in technology are dedicated to the development of enterprise solutions, occasionally it seems as though consumer-based apps can take the lead -- at least, as far as creativity is concerned.

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Mobile Business Expo: iAnywhere Brings Enterprise E-mail To The iPhone

If you're a professional who shelled out for the iPhone but still can't use it to access your work e-mail, get ready because soon you may be able to access your corporate network with your iPhone.

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Mobile Business Expo: How To Craft A Mobile E-Mail Strategy

Yesterday afternoon at Mobile Business Expo (MBX) we tackled the issue of crafting a push e-mail strategy. Guess what, it's not just about e-mail anymore.

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World Series Ticketing System Crashes, Rebounds

The Colorado Rockies were felled by "an external malicious attack" that crashed its online system Monday.

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CTIA Offers State Of The Industry Snapshot At Confab

If you believe everything CTIA, The Wireless Association has to say about the wireless industry, it would seem like it is firing on all cylinders. However, the rosy statistics don't quite cover up all the thorns.

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Women Entrepreneurs Shatter Myths

I attended a Make Mine A Million conference for Women entrepreneurs this morning in downtown New York City. And the first thing I came across was a bunch of lists about everything from HR Myths to Accounting Necessities. I love lists, so I'm passing them along here:

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Staying Informed During The Southern California Fires

Much of Southern California is currently under attack by wildfires. As a San Diego resident, I've suddenly taken an intense interest in local news. I've located several good Internet resources for staying on top of the fires' progress, including Twitter, Google Maps, Web sites and blogs. I'm passing them along for our SoCal readers, and anybody else who wants to stay on top of the progress of the emergency.

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Cryptography's Lemon Of A Business Model

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Here's how a startup in the encryption market took that saying to heart.

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Microsoft Bows To The EU, Open Source Shrugs

And so now Microsoft has conceded its antitrust case in the EU. So what does this mean for open source and Linux?  From what I can tell, it just means business as usual.

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Mobile Business Expo: Applications Lead Way In The Verticals

This week I am blogging from Mobile Business Expo, the mobility component of Interop in New York City. My colleague, Eric Zeman, this week will be blogging from CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment on the other coast in San Francisco. Earlier this morning, we kicked off MBX with a panel on mobility in the verticals.

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How Steve Jobs is Like Tom Brady

On Monday, Apple announced that profits for its last fiscal quarter exploded to 67 percent. "They are the New England Patriots of the tech world, appearing to be an unstoppable force," Samir Bhavnani, analyst for Current Analysis West told InformationWeek.

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What's Your Social Networking Strategy?

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Small and Medium Businesses Go Mobile

Who needs a company headquarters today? The reality is that employees spend a significant amount of time outside the office, so the smaller the headquarters, the better.

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Comcast Hates Teens and Small and Midsize Businesses

It was one thing when an AP report indicated that Comcast was blocking some file-sharing traffic on its network. But Lotus Notes!? That's going too far.

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AT&T Suit Against Vonage Makes Mockery Of U.S. Patent System

Is the U.S. patent system irretrievably broken, or are aggrieved parties justifiably defending their turf against infringement by companies unfairly trying to benefit from the fruits of their labors? Looking at AT&T's lawsuit against Vonage, it definitely seems to me like it's the former.

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7 Deadly Startup Mistakes

Sun Microsystems drew some 300 entrepreneurs to a startup "camp" in New York. The event was full of advice on things emerging companies can do raise their chances of success -- and a reminder of flubs to avoid.

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Quarter Of A Million iPhones Unlocked By Tinkerers

According to Apple's quarterly results, fully 17% of all iPhones sold are unlocked and roaming on networks other than AT&T's.

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CIOs, IT Spending, And 'Pressure On Growth'

What's your IT budget looking like for next year -- increase, decrease, or stand pat? And what does that say about an organization's commitment to IT as an innovation engine?

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Web 2.0 Summit: And The Launch Pad Winners Are ...

Last week at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco I ran through the contestants in the startup beauty pageant known as Launch Pad, and asked for readers' votes on the one Most Likely to Succeed. The results are in -- plus I'll reveal the actual winners chosen at the summit.

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Join Us For GridTalk To Discuss Virtual Worlds Standards And Interoperability

You're invited to GridTalk tomorrow in Second Life and on the Web, where we'll be talking to IBM and Linden Lab about their joint initiative to create standards for interoperability between virtual worlds and the Web. The two companies are working on standards to allow users to move their avatars between virtual worlds, as well as standards for sharing data between virtual worlds and the flat Internet.

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Is SaaS The End Of IT?

That depends on what your definition of "is" is, to paraphrase a famous presidential equivocation -- and your definition of IT.

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NYC Cab Drivers Need To Grow Up

Hear this, NYC cab drivers! Mobile technology is a good thing. Maybe the cab drivers -- who are striking in protest of plans to install GPS units in their cabs -- should talk to mobile field forces who use GPS day in and day out to get their jobs done. Or maybe talk to the customers they're supposed to be serving.

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Story About Man Who Limps To Apple Store After Recovering From Coma Revealed As A Hoax

It's a heart-tugging story: Geoff Evila was planning on camping out to buy an iPhone when it went on sale June 29, but instead a near-fatal car accident left him comatose. Four months later, he regained consciousness. At the prompting of his best pal, the local Apple Store re-created opening day for Geoff, who limped through the store proudly carrying his iPhone to the cheers of store staff.

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Is There a Future For Muni WiFi?

Any small or midsize business that needs Internet access and is sick of paying lots of money to get on the Web should be interested in the progress of various municipal WiFi projects around the country.

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Comcast Is Blocking More Than BitTorrent, Including Lotus Notes

As if the AP's report last week wasn't enough, it looks like Comcast is blocking other online services, including Gnutella, FTP, and even Lotus Notes. I guess Comcast doesn't respect the needs of telecommuters or net neutrality.

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I Hate Files

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Take a Sober Look at Linux

Last week's release of Ubuntu 7.10 marked another milestone on Linux's path from basement wonkitude to businessplace respectability. But the accolades for open source in general, and Linux in particular, often feel like a boozy lovefest.

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Internet Security Hall Of Shame

What are the ten biggest -- and, alas, most common -- Internet security mistakes made by small and midisized businesses, their employees, vendors, family and friends?

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Does This Punishment Fit the Copyright Crime?

While the RIAA goes after Usenet.com, a Vienna-based classical music publishing firm has succeeded in closing down a modest Web site which made public-domain musical scores available for free. Why? Because the site administrator wasn't an expert in international copyright law.

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Dumb iPhone Commercial Of The Week (Plus, Dell Discovers Devo)

So now the iPhone helps a pilot bust his plane out of a 3-hour tarmac delay by enabling him to surf to Weather.com? That's the preposterous story line of Apple's latest commercial, which was inescapable on Sunday whether you were watching football during the day on FOX and CBS, or game seven of the American League Championship Season in the evening.

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Linux Will Displace Unix When It Comes To New Apps

Last month, Gartner analyst George Weiss predicted applications will no longer be developed to run on Unix. This is a little like predicting the death of the mainframe -- Unix is going to be with us a long time yet -- but after looking at the Linux kernel development process, I think I know what he means.

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Please Speak S-l-o-o-w-w-w-l-y and Dis-tinkt-lee

I wrote recently about Web-based services that capture your cell phone voice mail, transcribe it to text, and deliver it to your e-mail ("Voice Mail Driving You Crazy? Get It In Writing"), and in the article I rated the quality of the transcription -- how accurate the text was. I got some e-mail expressing polite surprise at my conclusions.

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Ubuntu 7.10 ... OS X Leopard ... Must I Choose?

As you're no doubt sick of hearing by now, this week heralds two major events in the personal computing world: the release of Apple's OS X Leopard, and Ubuntu Linux 7.10.  Guess which one I want?  Both.

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Web 2.0 Summit: Baby-Boomer Civilians Are Coo-Coo For Craigslist

The Web 2.0 Summit got a delightful dose of reality from a panel of a half-dozen baby boomers, giving the point of view from a group usually unrepresented at industry conferences: The ordinary Joes and Janes who have to use the technology the industry builds.

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Web 2.0 Summit: Twitter Founder Evan Williams Preaches Added Constraints

Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter and Blogger, believes that developers should be adding more constraints to applications, and fewer features. "Twitter, in case you didn't know, is a very simple application built around the question: What are you doing?" Williams said in a presentation at the Web 2.0 Summit this week.

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Telecommuters Find A Home At Smaller Companies

Turns out that there's a lot of telecommuting going on in smaller companies -- and those folks are getting supported with the latest mobility technology, networking equipment, and software.

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YouTube Has A Video Preview Of The "CSI: New York" Second Life Episode

The crime scene investigators of CSI: New York go into Second Life to catch a killer next week, and the preview is up on YouTube.. The video shows a tech customizing an avatar. And then they go do some kind of gladiator thingie in-world. ZOMG, this is so exciting!!!!

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Web 2.0 Summit: Wall Street Becomes One Big Social Network

Today's "High Order Bit" talk from venture capitalist and "Infectious Greed" blogger Paul Kedrosky focused on the ways in which financial markets are coming more and more to resemble social networks. That leads to a pretty obvious question: Whom does increasing connectivity, correlation, and transparency in financial markets really benefit?

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Jury Of His IT Peers Would Throw The Book At Convicted Hacker, Poll Shows

By an overwhelming margin, InformationWeek.com readers would hit 26-year-old convicted hacker Joseph Patrick Nolan with the maximum sentence of 10 years in jail plus a $250,000 fine, according to results of a CIOs Uncensored online poll. That maximum sentence got the vote of 65% of respondents, while 14% voted for 1 year in prison and a $50,000 fine; another 14% voted for 1,000 hours of community service; and 7% voted for no penalty at all.

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Startup Promises Smoother Windows Mobile Rollouts

A new company, Enterprise Mobile, is about to debut as a managed service provider that helps companies deploy e-mail and enterprise applications on Windows Mobile devices. The newcomer is touting its ties with Microsoft as an advantage.

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Finding The Features That Make VoIP Worthwhile

Lots of talk about unified communications this week, thanks to Microsoft. But what CIOs really need to know is which feature will cause fellow execs to utter these words: "For that feature alone it's worth doing this system." I've got two examples.

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Business Spending On Mobile Data Set To Surge

While consumer content has taken its fair share of dollars, enterprises are still spending about 23% more on mobile data services than all the teenagers in the U.S. put together. And ABI Research says those figures are about ready to ramp up.

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Nokia N810 Tablet Vs. iPhone In Thrilling Death Match

We got great feedback from defenders of the Nokia 810 tablet following my dismissive review of the device after a five-minute evaluation at the Web 2.0 Summit. N810 advocates said it's not a smartphone; it's a completely different class of device: A Web access device, MP3 and video player, VoIP phone, Internet video chat machine, GPS, and more.

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Life (And Career Planning) Among The IT Tribe

We tend to view certain organizations and professions as if they were tribes or sects, with their own unique cultures, customs, personality traits, and aspirations.

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Security Threats Rise -- And So Do Security Budgets

Is your security budget increasing? Most small and midsized businesses are growing theirs.

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Google's Search Business Runs On 75% Profit Margin

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the ocean, someone reminds us just how deadly the shark out there really is. In this case the Great White in question, Google, is even more profitable than many of us had dared to consider.

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Virginia Woman Demands Customer Satisfaction From Comcast With Hammer

It's just not Comcast's day for good PR. As if the hoopla surrounding the cable company and Net neutrality wasn't bad enough, now this: Mona Shaw of Bristow, Va., was so fed up with her poor customer service from Comcast that she went after the company with a hammer. Literally.

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Linux Will Be Worth $1 Billion In First 100 Days of 2009

What's Linux worth? The question has been a favorite of technology groups and cocktail party conversations ever since a character named Jeff V. Merkey offered $50,000 for a copy of Linux. The offer was a ploy. Merkey wanted it under the BSD license, which would have undermined the terms of the GPL. So he didn't get it. But we know, at least, that $50,000 proved to be a low bid.

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Oh, One Last Thing About Web 2.0: Social Networking Sites Are Just For Fun

Hey, Steve Ballmer said Microsoft is going to be buying an average of 20 companies a year for the next five years. But get this: He said that that includes small companies. Oh, and he made this announcement at the Web 2.0 Summit. So you see? Web 2.0 does matter to small and midsize businesses.

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Comcast Disses Net Neutrality By Blocking Online Services

According to a report from AP, Comcast actively violates the idea of net neutrality, interfering with attempts by some customers to share files online.

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Shocker: The iPhone Is AT&T's Top-Selling Handset

I don't know about you, but I am stunned. Strategy Analytics put together some statistics to show that the iPhone (you know, the sort-of revolutionary device no one can shut up about) is AT&T's best seller and the fourth-best selling mobile phone in the United States. You'll never guess what is No. 1.

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Verizon's 2-Door Proposal Leads To The Same Old Closed Networks

Speaking yesterday at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Verizon's executive VP for public policy, Thomas Tauke, said Verizon is pushing for a so-called two-door policy where customers can either choose an unlocked device or a locked device that's subsidized by the carriers. Well, Monty Hall, tell us what's behind Verizon's new two-door policy?

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5 Things Facebook Must Do To Be Really Useful

So Mark Zuckerberg was telling the audience at the Web 2.0 Summit the other day how he's going to double Facebook's workforce, presumably to broaden its appeal beyond its 47-million current users. (What, all those students and on-the-job time-wasters aren't enough?) Here's an idea for you, Mark: Make Facebook into a truly useful tool, one where you can do more than just post pictures and ping people you're already in contact with anyway.

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Web 2.0 Summit Video: EBay Manages 'Disruptive Innovation' To Find Opportunity

Max Mancini, eBay's senior director of platform and disruptive innovation, describes how his team looks for potential threats to the auction house and tries to get ahead of them, leading to connecting with "social mapping" services such as Facebook, and a Digg-like service that allows users to rate the best auction photos.

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Web 2.0 Summit Video: Programming Co-Chair John Battelle Looks Ahead

Battelle, chairman of Federated Media, describes how this year's Summit looks at the edge of Web 2.0. As Web 2.0 matures, the Summit is looking at areas where the technology hasn't yet penetrated much, such as mobile computing and over-60 Web users.

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Web 2.0 Summit: You Pick The Launch Pad Winner

One of the most popular sessions at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco is the day-ending Launch Pad, a sort of American Idol for startups in which six entrepreneurs get to present their business ideas to a panel of venture capitalists, who then provide their critiques. At the end, the crowd votes on the winner in several categories. Here are the contestants from today's Launch Pad:

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Liveblogging Web 2.0 Summit: Conference Wrap-Up -- Where Is Web 2.0 Going?

John Battelle of Federated Media, Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media, and Eric Faurot, senior VP at CMP, got together this afternoon to put out an overview of the Web 2.0 Summit and look at the future of Web 2.0 in cell phones, sensors, and more.

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Bill Gates On Communications Hell And The Future

I cringed when reading Bill Gates' manifesto on how "software-powered communications" are going to change the workplace forever. He's right, of course. But was it necessary to go back 20 years to illustrate how bad things used to be? Those skeletons were best left in the closet.

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Microsoft's Unified Communications Suite: Will It Blend?

Road warriors, be alert: Microsoft's army of communication evangelists is coming for you, armed "with a duffle bag full of unified voice, video, and data communications products."

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Web 2.0 Summit: The Internet Helps You Live Longer

Great quote: At a panel on gaming, Trip Hawkins of Digital Chocolate drew a connection between smoking, lung cancer, social connectivity, Web 2.0, and casual games.

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Liveblogging Web 2.0 Summit: Hewlett-Packard Finds Printing Exciting

While Internet enthusiasts like to sneer at "ink on dead trees," and predict the death of print, in fact the opposite is happening. And that's the core of Hewlett-Packard's $30 billion printing business. Vyomesh Joshi, executive VP of the imaging and printing group, talked with conference content co-chair John Battelle about how the new technology of Web 2.0 affects the ancient technology of printing.

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Tired Of Smudges On Your iPhone? Get Phone Fingers

If there was an award for the strangest iPhone accessory ever invented, it would go to the makers of Phone Fingers, hands down (no pun intended). The latex fingers were created specifically for the iPhone's touch screen to prevent smudges and fingerprints. And no, this is not a joke.

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Viacom Sets Jon Stewart Free, Online

Providing some relief after the Steve Ballmer bombast, mild-mannered Philippe Dauman delivered his news and comments like an expert fencer today at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. While my colleague Antone Gonsalves covers Dauman's cut-and-thrust on Google's copyright plans, I'll give you the entertainment news: Viacom is posting the complete history of The Daily Show online, for free, for anyone to port to their own sites as they see fit.

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First Glance: The Nokia N810 Linux Internet Tablet Doesn't Make Sense

I had an opportunity to play with the new Nokia N810 Internet Tablet for about five minutes last night, and came away confused. It seems pretty darn expensive for a machine with limited usefulness. Even the name is misleading -- a "tablet" should be a device the size of a notebook computer; the Nokia N810 is a pocket-sized computer.

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Spam Via Bluetooth? That's What's Next

First there was spam. Then there was spim, which was followed by BlueJacking. Now there's Bluespam. That would be spam advertisements sent to your mobile phone via Bluetooth. What annoyances will we have to deal with next?

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Did You Hear? Something Called Office Communications Server Just Released

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Skype Cell Phone To Launch At The End Of October

According to a report from BusinessWeek, VoIP service Skype will be available on an IP-powered cell phone offered by carrier 3 in the U.K., Italy, Hong Kong, and Australia in "late October." Holy VoIP, Batman, it's a full-IP mobility.

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What Sentence Does Convicted Hacker Deserve? Vote, See 'Exit Polls'

Click here to vote on what sentence you feel convicted hacker Joseph Patrick Nolan deserves for hacking into and wiping out his ex-employer's payroll and personnel files. As of 12:30 EDT, here's where things stood: 32% of you feel he deserves the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and $250,000 fine; 32% say 1 year in prison and $50,000 fine; 27% say 1,000 hours of community service; and 9% say no sentence at all -- he's a victim. Vote!

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Can The RIAA Close Down Usenet?

Those of us who remember the Internet before the Web -- and yes, Virginia, there was an Internet before the Web -- will remember when Usenet was one of the major destinations for discussion and file-sharing. It's still there, in a quiet corner where the cognizanti hoped it would go unnoticed by the great unwashed. No more.

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A Quick Chat With The Folks At Splashtop

The other week I mentioned Splashtop, a quick-booting Linux-based environment that can be embedded into flash memory on a PC motherboard (among other things).  Yesterday I took time out to talk with the company, and learned more about what they have in mind for the future.

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What is Web 2.0 Anyway?

The fourth annual Web 2.0 Summit is going on. Should you care? Most of you probably don't, but you should, a little.

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Will Fixed-Mobile Convergence, Mobile Advertising, And Mobile Video Change Wireless In 2008?

Welcome another edition of Take 5, my regular feature where I ask an industry insider five questions about their company and the mobile business market as a whole. For this issue I sat down with Neeraj Choubey, Vice President with venture capital firm Venrock. Our topic today: Top trends in mobility.

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Verizon Wireless Blitzes Again, Drops Four New Smartphones

On the heels of its flagship consumer phones announced a couple of weeks ago, Verizon Wireless got all official with three new Windows Mobile 6 smartphones plus a Palm OS smartphone for the enterprise set. With three sliders and a Treo, there's a little something for everyone.

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AT&T Mobility Reshuffles Top Management

The ripple effects from a series of acquisitions lead to Stan Sigman, president and chief executive officer at AT&T Mobility, cleaning out his desk and heading to back Texas. The change underscores the uncertainty in the volatile telecom marketplace.

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Two Pricing Puzzles: The Risk Of The Rising Rupee, And Free Cyberexorcisms

What's the right price for an IT service? Based on some overnight news releases, this question is vexing IT service companies around the globe. For rapidly growing Indian service companies, the issue is how to continue making a profit on U.S. contracts while the Indian rupee surges in value against the dollar. Meanwhile, two U.S. cybersecurity firms have decided that the key is to give their services away -- well, at least for a day.

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Murdoch, DeWolfe Dissect Social Networking Future

Anyone who has ever written about News Corp. knows that you don't really "cover" Rupert Murdoch in the sense that you cover, say, Sumner Redstone or Michael Eisner or David Geffen. You marvel at him the way you might marvel at a giant, ancient lizard.

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Apple's iPhone SDK A Step In The Right Direction

Well, I'd like to think Steve Jobs was listening to me when he announced today that Apple will introduce a fully sanctioned iPhone software development kit (SDK) in February, 2008. But he probably saw the light all on his own.

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Intel Eyes Silicon Photonics As Future Speedway For Computing

The problem with today's computers is that, as fast as they are, they aren't fast enough. More precisely, the thin copper wiring used to link state-of-the-art processors can't support bandwidths greater than 15 to 20 gigabits per second. That's where optoelectronic devices come in, and that's why Intel is working on silicon photonics -- aka chips with built-in lasers. They can deliver communications speed of 40 Gbps and more.

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Liveblogging Web 2.0 Summit: Mike Moritz, Sequoia Capital

Former journalist Moritz describes the travails of the Internet and old-media businesses, the myth of the first-mover advantage, and describes the real reason why he left the Google board of directions (the real reason isn't as interesting as the rumors).

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Liveblogging Web 2.0 Summit: Evan Williams, Twitter

Williams co-founded Twitter and previously co-founded Blogger, the first really successful blogging service. He talked about how Twitter succeeded by taking away capabilities.

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Should The Government, Google, Or Another Company Manage Medical Records?

Marissa Mayer's presentation of Google's plans for the health sector was light on details and heavy on ambition. You can read more about the presentation here and here. Despite the lack of particulars, the scope of the possibilities the company is seriously considering is striking. The presentation made its ambitions known, but raised all sorts of questions about whether this should be Google's place. Does "don't be evil" mean work for the public good?

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Liveblogging Web 2.0 Summit: Revolution Money's Ted Leonsis And Jason Hogg

Leonsis and Hogg did a presentation describing their new Revolution Money system, which has big plans: To obsolete the way credit cards and PayPal currently operate, using Web 2.0 techniques. It'll be more secure, more flexibile -- and free to merchants.

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Liveblogging Web 2.0 Conference: Conversation With Adobe Systems CEO Bruce Chizen

Content co-chair Tim O'Reilly kicked off the discussion with Adobe Systems CEO Bruce Chizen by noting that Adobe should be dead. The whole idea of Web 2.0, he said, is that everything should be free and ad-supported. Companies like Adobe should be dinosaurs. Yet Adobe is thriving. How is that possible?

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What Google Might Do In Health

Marissa Mayer, head of search at Google, did indeed show up at the Web 2.0 Summit conference in San Francisco today, albeit briefly. Mayer presented what Summit organizers call a "High Order Bit" -- a 10-minute glimpse under the hood at what's going on with medical-related ventures in the Googleplex. Well, not exactly "under the hood." Mayer talked about Google Health, an emerging division for the search company. You can stay tuned on InformationWeek for a news story about Google Health. For now I'll share the comedy part of Mayer's routine. Below are The Top 10 Things Google Might Do in the health and medical area. 10. "People with your problems also searched for …" 9. Google could start a series of health-related Orkut mashups, like Rashbook, Boilbook, and Wartbook. 8. Instead of the expected expiration date for Google cookies, your expected expiration date. 7. Google algorithms could be redeployed to predict balding patterns. 6. Then Google could sell you Rogaine. 5. Google paternity search. 4. Typing in symptoms returns "Did you mean estate planning?" 3. An "I'm feeling yucky" button. 2. Viagra spam will now be sent only to those Gmail users who truly need it. 1. Your Google calendar mysteriously ends on April 21, 2044.

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Web 2.0 Summit Liveblogging: Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Founder And CEO

Session 2 of the Web 2.0 Summitt: Co-chair Mark Battelle interviews Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook Founder and CEO, about financing, hiring, the social graph, and more.

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Web 2.0 Summit Liveblogging: Opening Comments By Program Co-Chairs Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly Media, And John Battelle, Federated Media

It's a little after 3 on the opening day of the Web 2.0 Summit. I've alienated thousands of my fellow conference attendees by elbowing my way to the front of the crowd of people waiting to get in so I could score myself a seat next to an electrical socket. It's like _Mad Max_ here folks -- hordes of barbarians fighting each other for access to precious supplies of juice.

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Google Exec Raised By Wolves, Kidnapped By Gypsies

ValleyWag was reporting earlier today that Marissa Mayer, Google's "eccentric queen of search," could be "skipping out" on the Web 2.0 Summit today in San Francisco. T'aint so, says Google PR.

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Web 2.0 Summit: EBay's Max Mancini Turns Threats Into Opportunities

Max Mancini has one of the coolest job titles in the industry. As senior director of platform and disruptive innovation, Mancini's job is to figure out what technologies and business models might threaten eBay's business and do it first, for eBay, thus transforming the threat into opportunity.

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Do You Trust The Web With Your Money?

Where do you draw the line when putting your information online? Many people have gotten used to entering credit card and bank info online in order to pay bills and buy products. How about managing all your money?

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Personal Data Protection Legislation: Readers Have Their Say

Reader comments on my post about the California governor's veto of a bill that would increase the state's data protection standards included some points warranting further discussion and some intriguing ideas. A related poll shows readers share my skepticism about businesses' will and capacity to fix the data loss problem.

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Web 2.0 Summit: Google Link Love Feeds Search And Online Fame

The Web 2.0 Summit hasn't really started and I've already made so many star sightings. If you build Web businesses, you know these people. These people are the "A-listers" of the Web 2.0 world. The notion of fame in the Web 2.0 world is top of mind, and a strong showing at the event will jump-start a new business, reinforce or create fame for the founders. There is even a session focused on "The Future of Web Fame."

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Sprint Gets All Touch-y Feel-y

Like the handset manufacturers, it looks like none of the major carriers wants to be left out of the touch screen device competition. Sprint added a CDMA version of the HTC Touch to its lineup today. The gloves are off and the touch brawl is fully joined.

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Is All This Web 2.0 Openness A Good Thing?

I went to a news conference this morning and a philosophical debate broke out. The scene was the unveiling of the Nokia N810, a new Internet tablet from the world's No. 1 handset maker, at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. The Nokia executives were extolling the virtues of openness in the Web 2.0 world, when a German journalist piped up and asked, "But aren't you just making things open for the malcreants also?"

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Cast Your Vote: Dubious Dweeb, Courageous Crusader, Or Tech Terrorist?

Readers are expressing a range of views about the disgruntled IT worker who, as we noted last week, bungled his resignation process and thereby forfeited his last two weeks' salary, inspiring him to hack into and wipe out his ex-employer's payroll and personnel files. What sentence should he receive? Read on and cast your vote.

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Apple Announces iPhone Developer Kit But Refuses To Really Open The iPhone

Looks like the iPhone could open up a little bit more starting next year. According to an announcement on Apple's site, the company plans to have a Software Developer's Kit (SDK) available in February 2008. This kit will also enable developers to create apps for the iPod Touch. While this is a step in the right direction, is it enough?

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Web 2.0 Summit: Bubble 2.0? Or Tiny Bubbles And Big Bangs?

Today's New York Times article on Silicon Valley start-ups presents a picture of an investment community losing control. How can Facebook be worth $15 billion? How is Apple's valuation nearly equal to IBM's? How can some businesses be worth so much with a user base but no real revenue stream?

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Web 2.0 Summit: Platforms, Services, And Audiences Coming Your Way

Now in its fourth year, the Web 2.0 Summit has moved past trying to define what Web 2.0 is and isn't. Looking ahead to the conference, here are the concepts and issues I most want discussed at the show:

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Web 2.0: Where's the Beef?

Hey small and midsize businesses, you guys are not that interested in using Web 2.0 tools to get business information. Why not?

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Google's GrandCentral Is NOT The Hottest Mobile App Ever

Sure, it might offer the convenience of having one number, but its faults outweigh the benefits. For enterprises, there are clearly better alternatives. And unified communication isn't really that hot.

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Vista Problem? Fill Out This Form

So let's say you're running Windows Vista and you copy some files. You get an error message: ""Out of memory There is not enough memory to complete this operation." So this is exactly why Microsoft created Windows Update and a fix is coming, right? Well, no. There's a hotfix, but you have to ask for it. What's wrong with this picture?

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Net Business: No Access Taxation But No Access Regulation Either

The government giveth, the government taketh away, as two developments -- one on Net access taxation, one on broadband access regulation -- show.

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Ubuntu's Gutsy Gibbon Moves Linux Forward

With each release of Ubuntu, its commercial sponsor, Canonical closes more of the gaps that separate Linux from Windows -- and eliminates more reasons for small and midsize businesses to shun and fear Linux.

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Career-Maker Or Reputation-Breaker: BI Projects And Today's CIOs

A recent survey on the impact of BI projects offers little value because all the respondents are IT folks, rather than hard-core business users. But what's not so silly -- in fact it's quite scary -- is that this example serves as yet another reminder that in far too many companies, the IT community is totally detached from customers and is thereby becoming increasingly irrelevant. Is this hitting close to home?

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Can You Use Your Mobile Phone Outside The U.S.?

It's amazing how dependent we've become on being in contact all the time, wherever we are. Going to a meeting? Make sure you have your phone with you. Getting a quart of milk? Don't forget that phone. Traveling to the South Pole? Don't bother -- unless you've got the right kind of phone.

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How Will Social Networking Change The Internet, Long-Term?

As I start to write this blog post, I'm waiting for a flight to San Francisco for the Web 2.0 Summit. The big trend in Web 2.0 this year is social networking. Services like Facebook are transforming the fundamental architecture of the Internet, the way search engines like Google changed the Internet before. What will the post-socnet, post-Facebook Internet look like?

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Microsoft Updates Give Voice To Unified Communications, Mobility, And GPS

Microsoft is getting serious about phones. Bill Gates today announced Microsoft's new unified communications products. And in another set of announcements, Microsoft rolled out updates for its Live suite of services, including enhanced support for mobile applications, GPS, and voice-driven search.

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As Web 2.0 Grows, Apps Develop "Eyes"

On Oct. 6, the oldest Columbus Day parade in the country, in downtown Denver, had its 100th anniversary. Native Americans have for years protested the event, pointing out that Christopher Columbus pointed the way for four centuries of genocide in the New World. This year's parade quickly descended into shouting matches between the Indians and the Italian-Americans trying to celebrate their heritage -- all of it captured in a series of images by photographer A.J. Schroetlin, now posted on his Flickr page.

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Google's GrandCentral Is Hottest Mobile App Ever

The neatest new app I've seen in a long time is a simple idea inspired by the messy patchwork of mobile handsets, work phones, and personal landlines all of us juggle every day. It's called GrandCentral, and it gives you a single phone number through which you can screen and route all your calls. It also records voice mails for easy access via a Web interface or on your mobile handheld.

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Former Homeland Security CIO Gets Board Position

Steve Cooper, former Homeland Security CIO, was appointed to the board of a nonprofit organization working on interoperability standards among emergency responders. Chalk up another small victory for CIO credibility.

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Startup City TV: Lights, Camera, Innovation

Sixty seconds. That's how much time entrepreneurs will get to pitch their bright ideas on Startup City TV, InformationWeek's newest Web video initiative. We've got the cameras and studios; our audience will determine which startups have the staying power.

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Who's The CIO Of The Year?

InformationWeek is looking for nominations for its Chief of the Year. If you know of a worthy tech exec -- a person who's visionary, innovative, influential, an impact player -- please let us know.

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Oracle Quiet As IRS Probes Quarter Billion Tax Write Off

The IRS is investigating whether Oracle used some accounting tricks to manufacture a quarter billion dollar loss and claim a $78 million refund. So far, Oracle won't talk--is it too busy trying to buy BEA?

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Wireless Operators Raking In Your Cash With LBS Apps

Location-based services accounted for 51 percent of wireless operator mobile content revenue for the second quarter of 2007. Seems GPS-enabled handsets paired with navigation and other services are catching on.

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Reports: Apple Cutting Prices, Expanding Selection For DRM-Free iTunes

Apple plans to offer a greater selection of tracks in DRM-free format in the iTunes store, and drop the price to $0.99, in the face of competitive pressure from Amazon.com, according to reports.

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Schwarzenegger Trusts Businesses To Protect Your Data; Do You?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's veto of a California bill aimed at increasing the state's data protection standards, in part based on his view that the marketplace is handling consumer data protection, raises a troubling question: What planet is this guy living on?

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Conan O'Brien Foments a Cubicle Revolution

Conan O'Brien's skills as a funnyman and TV talk show host are well known. But unwittingly, he may turn out to be the father of an office culture revolution and the hero of office workers from the shores of Cubetown to the outskirts of Cubeville.

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No OS With My PC, Thanks: Part Two

I've been sifting through all of comments left for last week's article "Would You Like An OS With Your PC?  No Thanks".  I fully expected people to dissent -- both from me and each other -- but I've got enough here to chew on for quite some time. Here's my first round of chewing.

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Spark IP: an eBay for Ideas

SparkIP.com is a new Web site that aims to create a marketplace where ideas can be bought and sold.

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The Game of Touch-Enabled Mobiles Just Got Another Player

This time it's the 800-pound gorilla, Nokia. Today at the Symbian smartphone show in London, Nokia showed off the latest updates to its S60 smartphone operating system. Among the new features is--you guessed it--support for touch screen user interfaces. But that's not all.

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Whats the Difference Between a Telco and an ISP?

The inability of the courts and regulatory bodies to keep pace with technological changes could create problems, one that Richi Jennings, an analyst at Ferris Research thinks the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should acknowledge and fix.

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Internet Job Seeking Now Tops Newspapers

The Conference Board says that this year, more people looked for jobs online in the newspaper -- 73% to 65%. Just two years ago, those percentages were pretty much reversed.

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Top Four Reasons Motorola Invested In UIQ (And Why Mobile Linux May Be In Trouble)

Earlier today Motorola announced that it acquired a 50% stake in UIQ, a smartphone interface technology that runs on the Symbian OS. What does Motorola hope to get out of this deal?

Continue reading "Top Four Reasons Motorola Invested In UIQ (And Why Mobile Linux May Be In Trouble)..."

TCB: Self-Help Books For CIOs

Unfortunately, there isn't such a thing as a CIO manual. (Is there? -- please share.) But there does seem to be an endless supply of self-help-style, personal-productivity tomes for busy executives. What are the best ones for time-challenged tech execs?

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Reports: Apple To Launch Mac OS X 'Leopard' Update Oct. 26

Apple plans to launch OS X 10.5, code-named "Leopard," the last Friday in October, cutting it close in its commitment to ship the update this month, according to the Apple blog ThinkSecret.. Meanwhile, AppleInsider has a terrific overview of the most interesting elements of Leopard: The upgraded Apple Mail.

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'The Office's' Dwight Joins Second Life

The Office's favorite beet farmer and assistant to the regional manager, Dwight Schrute, is getting into Second Life, according to a report on the blog Just Jared.com. Dwight's avatar, "Dwight Shelford," features "a profile that proclaims his love of a variety of NBC Universal movies and shows, and his desire to 'calculate the exchange rate between Schrute bucks and linden dollars,' " according to Second Life Insider.

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Does Forsee's Departure From Sprint Mean Mobile WiMax Is Dead?

A few months ago, Sprint flirted with the controversial idea of spining off its WiMax unit. Well, now Sprint's CEO is out, and it looks like Sprint's WiMax plans are up the in the air. Is Sprint thinking about abandoning WiMax?

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Getting Ready for Microsoft OCS

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CIO's Next Move: Does COO Make Sense?

What's the next career move after CIO? Depends on what you want -- and what your organization needs.

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Motorola Snaps Up Touch Screen Mobile User Interface Rights

Motorola has decided touch screens might just be a bigger part of its future. It bought 50% of Sony Ericsson's stake in UIQ, which is based on Symbian, the platform behind Sony Ericsson's touch screen smartphones.

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Symantec To Buy Vontu?

Symantec may be close to announcing the acquisition of Vontu, a company that helps businesses control information on their networks. Given that Symentec already licenses Vontu's data loss prevention technology, the rumored deal isn't entirely unexpected.

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IT's Dirty Little Secrets

If you work in IT -- and if you're reading this, chances are very good that you do work in IT -- how about a sanity check?

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Mobile Security: The Data, Not The Notebook Is The Asset

Stolen laptops and notebooks continue to get a lot of attention when a lot of confidential data gets stolen along with the device.

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Watching Oracle Try To Acquire BEA Beats Reruns Of Dynasty

The IT world has its own versions of young, hot celebrities (Google, the iPhone) and they often take attention away from the less flashy yet equally important world of business software. Thank goodness we've got Oracle to keep things interesting.

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Do You Use Vista Or Does It Use You, Continued

Open the pod bay door, HAL. There are stories from a couple of sources about Windows Update automatically updating and rebooting users' systems even when they thought they'd disabled automatic updates. And Microsoft hasn't said anything much about why.

Continue reading "Do You Use Vista Or Does It Use You, Continued..."

Mobile Gmail Just Got Better

For the free mobile e-mail lovers out there, there's good news. Google has updated its mobile Gmail client and there are a host of improvements. The killer new feature? Search, of course.

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How Do You Reach Your CEO?

Hey CIOs, who do you report to? The CEO? The CFO? The COO? More importantly, who do you want to report to?

Continue reading "How Do You Reach Your CEO?..."

Intel Flirts With No-EMail Fridays

OK, so Intel hasn't actually asked employees to take a permanent e-mail break one day a week, but the chip giant -- like several other forward-thinking companies -- has been pilot-testing temporary moratoriums on time-wasting communications. The idea is gaining ground in Corporate America, as noted recently in The Wall Street Journal.

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Intel's First 45-Nm Penryn Quad-Core Processor Due Nov. 12

More from the quad-core wars: While we're waiting for AMD to release its first Phenom desktop chips before year's end, Intel is poised to ship its hottest desktop processor ever -- and its first 45-nm part -- in the form of the Core 2 Extreme QX9650 on Nov. 12.

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Linux Doesn't Need To Look Like Windows

After reading colleague Alexander Wolfe's piece about a Linux distro called "Vixta" that apes the look and feel of Windows Vista, I confess to having mixed feelings about the whole thing. Mostly negative ones.

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Web's Future Could Be Determined By The Fight Between Google And Nokia

As I have stated on Over The Air before, Google is committed to mobile as its future and the future of the global Internet. This is interesting, since Google is still focused on Microsoft as its main rival when Microsoft isn't the biggest player in the wireless market. If Google is so serious about mobile, how does it plan to fight Nokia?

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The Slow, Painful Crawl Toward E-Health

The Commonwealth Fund's recent survey of health care opinion leaders released in July 2007 showed that 67% of health care opinion leaders thought the acceleration of health IT would be very effective or effective in improving quality and safety in health care.

Yes, the U.S. health care system, where we spend more than $2 trillion, has problems that reach far beyond its IT. And as the above survey shows, not everyone thinks IT will be all that helpful -- a third in this survey don't see accelerating its use as being effective. But count me as a believer that it will, and that the pace of change is unbearably slow, despite the efforts of many incredible people in the profession. The acceleration of health-care IT continually crashes against people who don't feel a sense of urgency. We've urged CIOs to get involved in this issue and find ways to help their companies cut costs. That can be risky, since the complexities of the health care system can ensnare even the smartest IT shops, as Intel and Wal-mart have learned. But it's a risk worth taking, given the upside. And our federal government, which pays for a fair amount of health care itself, could take far more such risks to propel these efforts forward.

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Expect Big Things From Rupert Murdoch, Nokia At Web 2.0 Summit

It'll be an interesting gathering of the tribes next week as major players in the technology and entertainment industry are expected to unveil their latest products and services at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

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The Coming Of The iPhone Clones

As we head into the end of 2007 it's time to start thinking about all the new smartphones for 2008. Not surprisingly, DigiTimes claims that there are bunch of iPhone clones being prepared for the new year.

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Oracle Makes a Play for BEA, What's in it for Midsize Businesses?

Oracle made an unsolicited $6.6 billion bid for middleware maker BEA Systems today. Is that good news for small and midsize businesses?

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Brief Cell-Phone Use Can Cause Cancer-Related Brain Changes, Scientists Say

Given the high level of anxiety and controversy that surrounds the question of whether cell phones can cause cancerous brain tumors, it's surprising that this new study, from scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, hasn't gotten more attention in this country. Though not quite accurate, this headline from London's Daily Mail gives you the gist: "Only ten minutes on a mobile could trigger cancer."

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Telepresence Case Studies: Real-World Applications (And, Is It Right for You?)

Continue reading "Telepresence Case Studies: Real-World Applications (And, Is It Right for You?)..."

All-You-Can-Eat IT Service

Sinu provides IT service and tech support to small businesses for a flat monthly fee, regardless of how much time is spent fixing technology problems.

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Internet Evolution: Don't Fight The New Wave Of Digital Content

The U.S. Department of Defense earlier this year banned access to YouTube, MySpace, Photobucket, StupidVideos, MTV, and a bunch of other Web sites by soldiers stationed abroad. It makes sense. We're at war, and soldiers shouldn't be playing around on the Internet, sucking up bandwidth, and opening up the military network to security compromises.

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Funny Song: Let's Join A Social Network Just For Two

Ze Frank is back! The author of a hilarious and witty videoblog that ran, by design, for only one year, has returned to the interwebs with a spoof of social networks. Give it a listen; it's just 1:29 long.

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The Enemy Within: Disgruntled IT Employee Trashes Payroll Records And Could Get 10 Years

Just when you thought your to-do list already was too long comes the news that a disgruntled IT worker who had bungled his resignation process was convicted of later hacking into and wiping out the company's payroll and personnel files. So we must ask: How prepared is your team for locking out employees in transition?

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iPhone Unbricked, But Apple Still Locked

The penultimate chapter in Apple's sad iBricking saga has begun, with news that "good" hacker Erica Sadun has led a team that's come up with a way to have your iPhone cake and eat it, too. Their "jailbreak" procedure lets users unlock their phone and download third-party apps, without getting bricked. (The final chapter will be written if, and only if, Apple opens the iPhone. Don't hold your breath.)

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Employee Security: Don't Let Layoffs Go From Bad To Worse

Layoffs, terminations and firings are never easy -- but they also shouldn't expose your company, network and equipment to more risk than they have to.

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Ahhh, the Luxury of the Wired-Free Existence

Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, doesn't own a cellphone and has never used a keyboard. But I'm willing to bet all the IT guys at his successful outdoor clothing company do.

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RIAA File-Sharing Verdict Delays Day Of Reckoning On Downloading

I'm sorry to disappoint the record companies, but the Recording Industry Association of America's legal victory against Jammie Thomas, who was ordered by a Minnesota court to pay $220,000 in damages for sharing songs over Kazaa, changes nothing. Kids still steal most of their music, and the recording industry hasn't accepted the reality that it has to bag both the CD and DRM before it has a prayer of reviving itself.

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Phantom Phone Vibrations -- And Pocket Dialing

I thought I was the only one who experienced these phenomena, but it turns out that "many mobile phone addicts and BlackBerry junkies report feeling vibrations when there are none" while others find their phones make calls all on their own.

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Mobility Needs To Embrace Innovation And Ditch The Demand For Stability And Control

While reading the Bits blog of The New York Times earlier today, it struck me that the wireless industry is still stuck at the same impasse it's been at for years. Isn't it time to ditch the old demands of stability and embrace open technologies and user-driven innovation?

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The Debate Over SEO Automation

Some readers take issue with Yield Software's claim that it can automate much of the manual work associated with search engine optimization. Is Yield blowing smoke? Or are SEO experts who make a living on consulting worried about their business prospects?

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Pop Stars Become Mobile Spokespeople Du Jour

Motorola scored Fergie to rep its handsets. Samsung bonded with Beyonce to pitch its products. Who does that leave for Nokia, Sony Ericcson, and the rest of the mobile phone manufacturers? Let's contemplate which pop stars are most likely to sell their souls for mobile phone makers.

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No MotoBling For Americans

Motorola let loose a slew of new handsets today. Most are entry-level models for overseas markets, though two of the pleb-o-phones are headed for U.S. shores. But the real zinger is the gold-plated Razr2, which will only be available outside the U.S. No blinged out phone for the country that invented it? What gives, Moto?

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Reports: Apple Near To Opening iPhone To Third-Party Apps

Apple is near release of a toolset that would allow third-party developers to develop native applications for the iPhone, according to reports on Apple blogs. However, PC and Mac users accustomed to downloading any ol' app they can find on the Internet will be in for an unpleasant surprise with their iPhones -- they'll only be able to download and run apps that are sanctioned by Apple, and only through iTunes.

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Splashtop: Embedded Linux For Your Motherboard

Every so often I bump into yet another example of Linux being used in creative ways.  Here's a new one: an ASUSTek motherboard, the P5E3, which ships with a built-in Linux variant called Splashtop.

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Can You Go a Day Without Email?

What would your workday be like without email? Can you do it? Can you handle having to talk to your coworkers face to face or pick up the phone to talk to your boss? Doesn't it sound sosoprimitive?

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Sprint Execs Exit Means Lower Quality Business Cellular Services

Sprint Nextels board of directors kicked Gary Foresee, who had the titles of chairman of the board, CEO, and president, unceremoniously to the curb. Businesses should weep because his exit means poorer quality cellular services.

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Extend The Battery Life Of Your N95 By Skipping 3G For EDGE

Ever wonder if 3G access is a battery hog? Well, according to Wirelessinfo.com, users can extend the battery life of the new 3G Nokia N95 (the real 3G N95, not the one that doesn't run on 3G) by downshifting to EDGE.

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iPhone Dev Team Claims 1.1.1 Hack

Earlier a group of hackers split off from the now infamous iPhone Dev Team. Not to be outdone, the Dev Team today announced a publicly available hack for iPhone update 1.1.1. Will the iPhone hacking controversy every end?

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Phenom And Penryn Quad-Cores Coming For Christmas

If you covet processing power like I do, then we're both looking forward to a great fourth quarter, when AMD unleashes its first desktop quad-core processors, called Phenom, and Intel -- already a player in that arena -- counterpunches with its first 45-nm Penryn parts.

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Time To Break Out The 'Prove It' Pins Again, Mr. Szulik?

Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik is not known for avoiding conflicts that threaten his company. So how much longer will it be before he unleashes his legal team to defend against Microsoft's patent accusations in the same way he railed against SCO Group's copyright claims?

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Thomas Friedman Has No Clue About The Internet

Newly liberated from the for-fee "TimesSelect" straitjacket, Thomas Friedman today reminds us why he never met a generalization he couldn't inflate into a 700-word column. The New York Times gasbag has toured four (4!) U.S. college campuses and concluded that the undergrads, while admirable in many ways, are "too quiet, too online, for [their] own good."

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Treat Your Company Like A Star, Get A Widget

In the center of GwenStefani.com is an RSS-injected calendar of the pop star's concert tour, which fans can copy to their own Web pages. The startup behind these viral marketing widgets thinks your company can rally its own fan base in the same way.

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Microsoft Security Patches: 4 Critical, 2 Important

Yesterday was Patch Day at Microsoft and a Big Day it was, with both Vista and Internet Explorer getting some fixes.

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We're Showing You the Money. Isn't that Enough?

Computer science grads are making more money than they have in a while thanks to the dearth of computer science graduates and the hearty IT market. You'd think it would get easier for IT managers to fill their departments, right?

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Mozilla Is Promising To 'Rock' The Mobile Web

Giving the mobile Web browser competition a shot in the arm, Mozilla's Mike Schroepfer said in a blog post that Mozilla has big plans for the mobile Web. Yes, a mobile version of Firefox is in the works, and should be ready next year.

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iPhone Bricking Aftermath: Techies Will Tinker, No Matter What

The hue and cry over iPhone bricking is deafening. That's why the following findings from a survey of readers might come as a surprise: very few individuals have modified their iPhones in ways that should have voided their warranties; also, very few of those individuals have actually been bricked. Further, Apple's policies were fairly well understood.

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'The Long Twilight Of The CIO'--Is Darkness Descending On Your Career?

Author/blogger Nick Carr's recent post claiming it's twilight time for the CIO role is somewhat overstated but still quite insightful. I'd put it this way: by mid-2008, CIOs who've failed to embrace change as a competitive advantage and failed to make revenue growth and customer loyalty their top priorities will be fired. And that will be a good thing for the profession.

Continue reading "'The Long Twilight Of The CIO'--Is Darkness Descending On Your Career?..."

Have An iBrick? Blame The Hackers

A sect of hackers has split from the iPhone Dev Team and claims that AnySIM and iUnlock both had critical flaws that led to the bricking of hacked iPhones during the update to 1.1.1. They place the blame on poorly written hacks by the iPhone Dev Team and have splintered off into their own "elite" team. Fight! Fight! Fight!

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Walking the Walk

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HR Technology Has Its Own Conference -- Who Knew?

Did you know that there's a whole conference devoted to Human Resources technology? I didn't, but I do now!

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Google Needs To Improve Its Mobile RSS Client

How many of you out there use Google's Reader RSS client to compile your feeds? I use it on my desktop, where it works just fine. Using the mobile version, however, is not so satisfying.

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Rob Carter, CIO, FedEx: 'It's About Connectedness'

There's a very fundamental shift taking place in the world, Rob Carter told the assembled technology managers at SIMposium 2007: The rising tide of network access is lifting the boats of opportunity.

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Security Costs: Are You Spending Enough? Too Much?

The average company spends 20 percent of its technology budget on security. Does that finding match your security outlay?

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Better Video Coming To Mobile Phones

Opera sang about some new technology today that it is working on with technology partners to improve video seen on mobile phones. Not TV or movie content, but better video that is embedded in Web sites, such as YouTube. What's interesting is that the technology has nothing to do with wireless networks.

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Microsoft Eyeing GPS Company Garmin?

Microsoft is reported to be looking to acquire Garmin, the navigation system company. Makes sense to me, at least technology-wise.

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Stop Salespeople From Stealing Contacts

OutProtect is launching new a product that aims to stop Salesforce.com users from stealing contact databases and other critical data.

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Linux Apes Vista With New Distro Called Vixta

If Windows Vista is so terrible, how come there's someone in the open-source community who wants to copy it? That's the case with the latest Linux distro, a Vista look-alike called Vixta.

Continue reading "Linux Apes Vista With New Distro Called Vixta..."

Would You Like An OS With Your PC? No Thanks

There's an argument currently raging about whether or not a PC should even ship with an operating system of any kind preloaded.  Would the lack of a preloaded OS, be it Windows or Linux or what-have-you, level the OS playing field that much more?

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A Company Where Employees Want to Stay

W.L. Gore & Associates is a big company  it's got nearly 5,000 employees  but that shouldn't stop small and midsize companies from looking to them for advice about how to run a successful company.

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Websense Emerging as Viable Security Supplier

Are you a bit insecure about your security supplier? In this highly volatile marketplace, Websense is emerging as a vendor that medium and small businesses may want to take a closer look at.

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The Return Of The Digital House

It isn't about Internet refrigerators; it's about facilitating the home health care of the aging population through digital technology.

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Last CIO Standing, Memphis Edition: Joke #2

Since it's my obligation to pass on every CIO joke that I hear, I must report one from SIMposium 2007 here in Memphis. It was told by a (former) CIO, to a room full of CIOs, which just goes to show that CIOs can, too, laugh at themselves, despite what anybody says.

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Virtualization Means Different Things To Different Observers

VMWare today announced a raft of new virtualization offerings, but InformationWeek, CNET, and PC World reported on the news in very different ways.

Continue reading "Virtualization Means Different Things To Different Observers..."

U.S. Unveils New 'Wave of Agony' Ray Gun

Billed by its maker, Raytheon, as "a revolutionary, less-than-lethal directed energy application," the new Silent Guardian brings Flash Gordon-style ray-gun technology to today's wars of insurgency. And best of all: it leaves no marks.

Continue reading "U.S. Unveils New 'Wave of Agony' Ray Gun..."

'Consolidation' Isn't The Only Driver In Software

You hear words like "consolidation" and "mature" so often about business software, you'd think all anyone's doing is dividing up a stagnant pool of maintenance revenue among an ever-smaller group of software vendors. News around Business Objects and SAS today reflects something a lot more interesting: IT teams scrambling to provide clearer, faster insights from exploding volumes of data.

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SAP, An Industry, And Their Customers Grow Up

The software industry is consolidating, we're told, because that's what mature industries do. But it's also what many mature customers demand.

Continue reading "SAP, An Industry, And Their Customers Grow Up..."

Wi-Fi Hotspot-Spotting T-Shirt Will Not Get You Dates, Makes You Look Like A Dweeb

The new Wi-Fi detecting T-shirt from ThinkGeek may help you find a Wi-Fi hotspot, but I think Dr. Love would give it a serious thumbs down. At least for anyone over the age of 12.

Continue reading "Wi-Fi Hotspot-Spotting T-Shirt Will Not Get You Dates, Makes You Look Like A Dweeb..."

Ubuntu Users Looking For Linux Chicks

It's always been my impression that, appearances to the contrary, Linux aficionados are no different than the rest of us. So I wasn't surprised when I saw a post on the Ubuntu Women forum, from a guy, who's wondering if there are "any good places online to meet like-minded free software women." (The "free," of course, refers to the software.)

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Fully Working iPhone Hack For 1.1.1 Getting Closer

Many of our readers wrote in over the weekend to inform me that my post from Friday, "Apple iPhone Update 1.1.1 Has Been Hacked," was not completely accurate. The hack at the time only allowed access to file directories on the iPhone, and did not completely open the new upgrade. Well, the hack of 1.1.1 appears to be closer to completion today.

Continue reading "Fully Working iPhone Hack For 1.1.1 Getting Closer..."

New York Times Says No Google Phone

Seeing through the trees to the forest, New York Times reporter Miguel Helft, who published a feature on Google's mobile strategy this morning, says on his accompanying blog that "sources I talked to with knowledge of the project say Google is not building a phone." This is the conclusion I've reached previously here and here.

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Apple To Sell iPhone Apps Via iTunes Music Store?

According to 9to5mac, Apple is tapping T-Mobile's Sidekick developers to help it create and distribute third-party applications for the iPhone through the iTunes Music Store.

Continue reading "Apple To Sell iPhone Apps Via iTunes Music Store?..."

Business Security Requires Network Security Requires Employee Security Requires Job Security

The employee security I'm talking about here is your technical team's -- and your ability to hold onto them.

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AT&T Acquisition Highlights Importance of Customer Choice

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In The High-Velocity Economy, IT Is The Engine

That's truer now than it ever has been, says Jim Carroll, noted futurist and big thinker. And if your upper management doesn't get it, maybe you should look for another job.

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Have You Taken Your CFO Out to Lunch Yet?

IT managers do all sorts of things to get their key projects approved from hiring consultants to spending hours preparing charts and spreadsheets. I'm willing to bet not many do what Ian Campbell, CEO of Nucleus Research, suggests: Take their CFO out for lunch.

Continue reading "Have You Taken Your CFO Out to Lunch Yet?..."

The New York Times Weighs In On Linux

Major news outlets typically make little mention of Linux.  Today, though, The New York Times weighed in one of the state of Linux with an article that is, blessedly, not a total hatchet job.

Continue reading "The New York Times Weighs In On Linux..."

CIOs Are People, Too

With their technical mastery and business savvy as a given, IT execs represent a unique group of highly motivated individuals. Check out these CIO profiles and compare their professional challenges and personal goals with your own, and with those of your corporate colleagues.

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Why Google Won't Sell A gPhone

This was a rare week when a new rumor about the long-awaited gPhone from Google arriving ANY MOMENT NOW did not emerge. If I had a nickel for every time a blogger has announced that the prospective device has been "confirmed," I'd have a lotta nickels. So I'm going to go out on a limb and say: It ain't happening.

Continue reading "Why Google Won't Sell A gPhone..."

Apple Class-Action Suit Filed By California Man Over iPhone Bricking

California resident Timothy Smith on Friday filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple, alleging that the iPhone maker violated the state's antitrust law. The suit was filed on behalf of Smith by Damian Fernandez, the attorney who's been seeking plaintiffs for a class-action case against Apple over iPhone bricking.

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Apple iPhone Update 1.1.1 Has Been Hacked

Faster than a speeding bullet, a pair of hackers who go by the names of "dinopio" and "Edgan" appear to have successfully hacked an iPhone with the 1.1.1 software and firmware upgrade. When is Apple going to give up?

Continue reading "Apple iPhone Update 1.1.1 Has Been Hacked..."

Will Apple Open The iPhone When Leopard Ships?

If you haven't had enough iPhone-mania this week, get ready for some more. The latest iPhone rumor claims that Apple will unlock the iPhone when its new OS, Leopard, ships. Why would Apple suddenly open the iPhone now?

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iPhone Bricks Prove Apple Isn't Ready For The Business Market

InformationWeek has been taking a look at Apple in the business market. While Apple has always been big in certain verticals -- publishing and education, to name two -- it's been weak in corporate IT as a whole. No matter what the Apple fans claim, this week's fiasco with bricked iPhones proves that Apple still isn't ready for the business market.

Continue reading "iPhone Bricks Prove Apple Isn't Ready For The Business Market..."

Symbian And ARM Go Multicore, Future Smartphones To Be Faster Than Superman

Amid the furor over you-know-what this week, some genuine news that's actually pretty cool occurred. Symbian and ARM announced that future Symbian devices will support multiple CPU cores. (I don't know about you, but I am still waiting for quantum processors to take over the universe.) In the meantime, Symbian smartphones will get a serious boost in performance come 2010.

Continue reading "Symbian And ARM Go Multicore, Future Smartphones To Be Faster Than Superman..."

The OTHER Apple Phone

The bloom may be off the iPhone for you, like it is for me -- it was pricey, then it was suspiciously cheaper, it was locked, it was unlocked, it was bricked, whatever. But along comes a guy with ANOTHER Apple phone that's just plain coolness -- he's making calls on his Newton. His what?

Continue reading "The OTHER Apple Phone..."

Microsoft Decides It's Better To Switch Than Fight

While software piracy is a problem that should be taken seriously, it seems that many companies have placed the burden of dealing with anti-piracy inconveniences on the individual user -- sort of like handcuffing the guy who forgot to pay for a lollipop while ignoring the safecracker in the back of the store.

Continue reading "Microsoft Decides It's Better To Switch Than Fight..."

Has Apple Jumped The Shark And Gone Rotten?

What should have been another glorious moment in the sun for Apple is quickly turning into a blemish that won't go away. Rather than bask in the victory of the iPhone, Apple appears to have undermined itself by bricking modified iPhones. Is this the beginning of the end?

Continue reading "Has Apple Jumped The Shark And Gone Rotten?..."

Lawmaker Embarrassed by Nude Pix on Flash Drive

Is someone at the State Library of Ohio giving out free memory sticks loaded with hidden porn? How else to explain how a state lawmaker's PowerPoint presentation to a high school class Tuesday was briefly punctuated by images of topless women?

Continue reading "Lawmaker Embarrassed by Nude Pix on Flash Drive..."

Privacy: What's The CIO Got To Do With It?

Cooperation between the CIO and the CPO is a recipe for a successful privacy initiative, says Michelle Dennedy, chief privacy officer at Sun Microsystems. Lack of cooperation is a recipe for... well, you know.

Continue reading "Privacy: What's The CIO Got To Do With It?..."

iPhone Price-Cut Lawsuit Could Morph Into Apple Class-Action Case

The lawyer behind the case in which a New York City woman is suing Apple and AT&T for $1 million over its $200 iPhone price cut has got another legal move up her sleeve. It could potentially elevate the litigation from a curiosity that's been derided throughout the blogosphere (like here, where it's called "the moronic lawsuit of the day") into a serious action complete with an antitrust allegation.

Continue reading "iPhone Price-Cut Lawsuit Could Morph Into Apple Class-Action Case..."

iPhone Brick Debate Is About Consumer Rights And Smartphone Freedom

Many Over The Air readers do not seem to understand what is at stake in the debate over Apple and the iPhone bricks. This isn't an argument about contracts and Terms of Service. This isn't a debate about personal responsibility. This is about consumers' rights and, specifically, consumers' rights to control their own computing devices.

Continue reading "iPhone Brick Debate Is About Consumer Rights And Smartphone Freedom..."

10 Signs Of Web 2.0 Overload

If I sprinkle my conversations with references to Second Life or YouTube or User Generated Content (UGC, to those in the know), then I can roll with the big boys. So Digg this and Del.icio.us that. Facebook my Engadget you TechCruncher! Fark my Valleywag. As we approach the Web 2.0 Summit in less than two weeks, knowing these useful signs of overload will be extremely useful.

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Microsoft Sounds Off On The gPhone And The FCC Spectrum Auction

Welcome to an action-packed edition of Take 5, a regular feature where we at Over The Air ask an industry insider five questions about their company and the mobile business market as a whole. This week we focus on the gPhone. Our guest is Scott Rockfeld, group marketing manager at Microsoft.

Continue reading "Microsoft Sounds Off On The gPhone And The FCC Spectrum Auction..."

FCC Chair Must Face Down The Carriers In 700-MHz Auction Flap

I have wondered in this space before whether FCC chairman Kevin Martin has the, uhh, intestinal fortitude to pull off what will undoubtedly be seen as the defining task of his career: seeing through the auction of valuable 700-MHz spectrum so that it benefits consumers, breeds competition in the carrier-dominated U.S. wireless industry, and brings in many billions to the U.S. Treasury. Judging from events of the last month, the answer seems to be "Nope."

Continue reading "FCC Chair Must Face Down The Carriers In 700-MHz Auction Flap..."

The Less Visible CIO: A (Software) CEO's Perspective

Consolidation has turned the CIO into a fixed-cost expense. But there are tools that can provide the right kind of information to turn the CIO back into an innovation asset, says a software CEO.

Continue reading "The Less Visible CIO: A (Software) CEO's Perspective..."

'Brick' Enters Formal English Lexicon As Slang For A Useless iPhone

Did you ever think you would read the word 'brick' so many times in one week? Not only is it a noun (this brick used to be an iPhone), but it is also a verb (he bricked his iPhone), and adjective (that bricked iPhone doesn't work). It also happens to be a town (yo, shout out to New Jersey). It has yet to become a curse word (Brick you!).

Continue reading "'Brick' Enters Formal English Lexicon As Slang For A Useless iPhone..."

Is It Wrong To Tweak Your Device?

My first computer (back in 1983) was a Compaq Portable, a 28-pound DOS machine with two 5.25-inch floppy drives and a 9-inch display. I was delighted with my new purchase -- until I found the small sticker on the back of the machine that said if I opened it (to, say, add memory), I would void the warranty. Say what?

Continue reading "Is It Wrong To Tweak Your Device?..."

Apple iPhone Bricking Update Disables Bluetooth Headset Indicator

Earlier today my colleague Alex Wolfe blogged that the number of complaints for the software updates on the iPhone were beginning to lighten. Now, however, it looks as though software update 1.1.1 is breaking the Bluetooth headset indicator on the iPhone for many users.

Continue reading "Apple iPhone Bricking Update Disables Bluetooth Headset Indicator..."

Network Security Problems? Blame The Boss!

A recent pre-prison interview with a convicted hacker offers some surprising and important lessons in network and computer security.

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Yes, Macs On The Net Are Increasing

The number of Web surfers using Macs increased to 6.6% in September, a 40% increase over August. At Lifehacker, which is reporting those results, they have a far higher percentage of readers -- 14% -- using Macs. Your peers who visit InformationWeek.com from a Mac fall between 7% and 14%, and their numbers are growing.

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Dying Professor Pausch Fulfills Another Dream: Practices With NFL Steelers

A few weeks ago, 46-year-old Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch gave his final lecture and focused on helping young people fulfill their childhood dreams. Yesterday, the computer science professor realized one of his own: he practiced with the Pittsburgh Steelers. And he promised that if the Steelers get in the Super Bowl, he'll live long enough to see it.

Continue reading "Dying Professor Pausch Fulfills Another Dream: Practices With NFL Steelers..."

Novell's Linux Driver Project Is Back In The Saddle

Last month the big Linux hardware news was ATI (er, AMD) announcing it'd release full specs for its hardware for the sake of open-source drivers. Now Novell's kicked things up a notch in its own way: it has rebooted the Linux Driver Project.

Continue reading "Novell's Linux Driver Project Is Back In The Saddle..."

Re-thinking Microsoft Office?

Continue reading "Re-thinking Microsoft Office?..."

The iPhone Update Woes Are Not Unique

As any long-time Apple user knows, Jobs and Co. offer frequent updates to the base Apple operating system, iPod software, iTunes software and other patches, plugs, and fixes. Not all of them have gone smoothly. So why all the bad press just for the iPhone?

Continue reading "The iPhone Update Woes Are Not Unique..."

The IT Managers' Secret Weapon

IT managers have to be alert and nimble to keep up with the constant swirl of changing technology, evolving standards, thorny compliance issues, demanding users, budget constraints, and looming project deadlines.

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Disney Decision the First Step Leading to End of MVNO Services?

Smiley faces are in scant supply at the executive offices of Disney Mobile, which announced recently that it will close up shop. If marketing maven, Disney could not build a viable MVNO business, can anyone else?

Continue reading "Disney Decision the First Step Leading to End of MVNO Services?..."

iPhone 'Brick' Problems Apparently Easing For Apple Updaters

No blog's been tougher on Apple than this one, which has reported on the iPhone bricking fiasco since its outset. Earlier today, I noted that even some legit users seem to have been ensnared in iPhone update hell. However, the latest check of Apple's forums indicate that most owners who haven't unlocked their phones or loaded them up with third-party apps aren't having problems loading the 1.1.1 update onto their devices.

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Those Stuck With iPhone Bricks Should Blame Apple, Not AT&T

Among the Apple fans, bloggers, and general tech geeks there seem to be two sides to the iPhone bricking debacle: Those who blame Apple and those who blame AT&T. So who is the guilty party?

Continue reading "Those Stuck With iPhone Bricks Should Blame Apple, Not AT&T..."

Pacific Northwest National Lab Does Cybersecurity

Jerry Johnson, CIO of one of the country's top national laboratories, is "amazed" at the level of insecurity that persists at many organizations. More CIOs should consider protecting their data like this world-class research institution does.

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Network Monitoring and Management -- FREE*

How would you like to get your network monitoring and management software for nothing? Sounds good, right? But what if that free network help desk came with advertising? Spiceworks is hoping that it's a trade-off that will appeal to many smaller companies.

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CIOs Should Be Fired For Foolish Security Breaches

Imprisoned hacker Robert Moore says it was child's play to hack into thousands of corporate systems because most IT groups don't follow basic hygiene such as resetting default passwords and keeping logs. While one security researcher says it's the vendors' fault, I lay the blame squarely on CIOs: if they don't allocate resources and enforce behavior that promotes airtight cybersecurity, they should be fired.

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Next Generation iPhone Could Have An Intel Inside

According to DigiTimes, the iPhone could sport "Intel Inside" branding. Could this be one of the details about the next-generation iPhone?

Continue reading "Next Generation iPhone Could Have An Intel Inside..."

Six Degrees Of Customer Loyalty

CIOs need to embrace and embody them, says a customer loyalty expert, whether they're dealing with internal customers, or -- as is increasingly the case (and should be) -- external customers.

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Rumor Round-Up: Now RIM Is Making A Touch Screen Device

The latest scuttlebutt from the Interwebs has purported spy shots of the BlackBerry 9000, a fantastical iPhone look alike that sheds keys entirely for what appears to be a touch screen. Why is my BS meter clanging loudly?

Continue reading "Rumor Round-Up: Now RIM Is Making A Touch Screen Device..."

Is iPhone Update Bricking Legit Users?

There may be a bigger problem for Apple than the public-relations fiasco over the "bricking" of handsets of users who've messed around with unauthorized apps. According to traffic on Apple's own iPhone forum, there's a growing cadre of users who are claiming they haven't engaged in any prohibited activity yet have still seen their iPhones locked up by Apple's new 1.1.1. software update.

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Bungie Escapes From Microsoft. Apple, Revisit The Pippin!

Reports are swirling that Bungie Studios, the game developer responsible for the Halo series, the Myth series, and other good things, has arranged to buy back its name from Microsoft and part ways.

Continue reading "Bungie Escapes From Microsoft. Apple, Revisit The Pippin!..."

Palm Admits New Operating System Won't Be Ready For A Looooong Time

Speaking to analysts and press on a recent conference call, Palm CEO Ed Colligan came forward and said its next-generation operating system -- promised for late 2007 -- won't be ready until late 2008. This is a bad set back.

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Why Aren't You Googling Yet?

The battle among online apps for the hearts and minds  and IT departments  of the business world continues.

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Consumers May "Get" Cyber Security -- But That Doesn't Mean They've Got It

More than 90 percent of consumers think their PCs -- and their computing habits -- are safe. Half of them are wrong.

Continue reading "Consumers May "Get" Cyber Security -- But That Doesn't Mean They've Got It..."

Yield Software: Google Optimization As A Service

Search engine optimization, the art of getting your Web site to rank higher on Google and other search engines, involves constant monitoring and tuning. A new service from startup Yield Software promises to automate that work.

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An Upgraded Opera For Mobile Browsing

The Opera Mobile browser is preferred by many to Internet Explorer Mobile for Web browsing on Windows Mobile-based equipment. So it's good news for lots of people that there's an incremental upgrade just out, Opera Mobile 8.65. And Version 9 is on the way. And if you're a BlackBerry user, Opera wants you as well.

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Nokia Touts Its Open Platform As Antidote To Apple's iPhone

The world's largest cell phone vendor has launched an advertisting counterattack against Apple, which has dissed some of its most loyal customers by "bricking" unlocked iPhones or those loaded up with third-party apps. (Interestingly, few of the Apple uber-faithful are angry, judging by the many responses to our original post, where commenters are of the opinion that it's your own darn fault if your iPhone got bricked.)

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Oops, Blodget Does It Again, Prediciting Google At $2,000 A Share

It looks like Henry Blodget may be up to his old tricks again. Yesterday Blodget predicted that Google could hit $2,000 a share. Is this realistic or is it the Dow 36,000 thesis of the Web 2.0 era?

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Four Reasons I Think Google May Try To Become A Carrier In India

AT&T this week applied for a license to offer wireless service in India. The move is AT&T's first step toward becoming a carrier in one of the fastest growing wireless markets. Will Google follow in AT&T's footsteps?

Continue reading "Four Reasons I Think Google May Try To Become A Carrier In India..."

A Technology Bubble? No Burst In Sight

It's a frequent, anxious query, made as the questioner looks over his shoulder at the shaky mortgage market: Are we in another technology bubble, one that will burst with the slightest jar? I'm sure we're not, but it's hard to explain why.

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Isn't It Time Apple And AT&T Opened The iPhone?

Why is the iPhone still a closed shop on AT&T's network? At the time of the launch Apple suggested that it was necessary to keep the device locked, but hinted that the device would be eventually opened. It's four months later and the iPhone is still locked. How much longer must developers wait?

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Don't Sweat The Silly Stuff

One of the side effects of running any publication is that PR people love to pitch you stories about things their clients are convinced are important. Sometimes they are, of course, but often they're about nonsense like office clutter and pet sitting.

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Phony Phishing Fosters Less-Gullible Users

Later this week in Pittsburgh, the Anti-Phishing Working Group will hold its eCrime Researchers Summit. Among the presentations will be some findings from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who have used phishing tactics to educate unwary users about the dangers of phishing attacks. Got that?

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Nick Carr's New Book: 'The Big Switch'

Circle the date: Jan. 7, 2008. Yes, just three months from now, the guy who first said "IT Doesn't Matter" and then changed his approach to "Does IT Matter?" comes out with a new book. Nick Carr's upcoming work will chronicle the ways in which "companies are beginning to dismantle their private computer systems and tap into rich services delivered over the Internet," according to remarks on his home page.

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What's The Value Of IT?

Almost two-thirds of CIOs and CFOs don't know -- and don't try to know. That's according to a new survey by Micro Focus. Do you know what your software's worth?

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Technological Changes Are Hard

The payroll wreck being endured by tens of thousands of Los Angeles teachers serves as a reminder that when software deployment goes wrong, the results can be truly disastrous -- no matter what size business is involved.

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California Lawyer Seeking Plaintiffs For iPhone Class-Action Suit

A Saratoga, Calif., attorney is increasing the legal heat on Apple in the wake of the iPhone bricking dispute.

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More Free Online Document Apps -- This Time From Microsoft

You've got to give Google, ThinkFree, and Zoho, among others, credit. If not for them we might never have more free Web-based software from Microsoft that lets you share and store documents online.

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Titan, Not Online Services, Is Microsoft's Real SaaS Play

Microsoft's trying to get attention this week for its "new" Online Services for businesses, including on-demand Exchange and SharePoint. But this is just rebranding of hosted software it's offered for a while. If you want to know Microsoft's true SaaS play, take a look at Titan.

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Apple Sticking To Guns Amid iPhone 'Bricking' Fiasco

Apple is apparently intent on hanging tough amid the growing iPhone bricking controversy. That's the message I'm getting from Apple's public-relations department.

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HTC Touches A Nerve With New Touch Screen Smartphones

Apple may have sold 1 million iPhones in less than three months, but HTC -- a Windows Mobile smartphone manufacturer -- gave the iPhone a run for its money with 800,000 HTC Touch phones sold in a similar period. It unveiled even more of them yesterday.

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Five Things For Linux Distributions To Do Better

There are many things that Linux does well. There are many things that still need work. But they're not always the obvious things, either.

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Want Better Internet On Your Mobile Phone? So Do Nearly Half Of Users

Seems that the idea of the mobile Internet is catching on. Enough so, in fact, that 45% of people polled by The Kelsey Group indicated that they will specifically look for better mobile Internet capabilities on their next phone. Will you?

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Cisco Continues Its Migration up the Protocol Stack

Cisco, the industrys top networking equipment supplier, wants to become a key software supplier and acquired start up call center reporting specialist Latigent. The behemoths move may eventually deliver more robust call center reporting functions to medium and small businesses.

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Laptop Security: Mind The Gap

More big retailer cyber security lessons for small to midsize businesses: This time a security gap hit The Gap.

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How Is MSN Losing $1 Billion A Year?

According to Henry Blodget (I know, I know, Henry Blodget on a Web company losing money -- insert irony here), Microsoft's MSN is losing $1 billion a year. That's right, $1 billion.

Continue reading "How Is MSN Losing $1 Billion A Year?..."

Five Reasons Nokia Should Buy Skype From eBay

According to Henry Blodget at Silicon Alley Insider (Henry Blodget and Silicon Alley, two great Web 1.0 tastes that go great together?), eBay's acquisition of Skype can now be officially tagged a bomb. How long will it be until Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft buys Skype?

Continue reading "Five Reasons Nokia Should Buy Skype From eBay..."

Microsoft Joins The Documents-For-Free Movement

It seems that online word processing has suddenly become sexy. Within hours of each other, both Microsoft and Adobe have joined Google, Zoho, and other companies in promoting new online document creating/sharing services. What gives?

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Microsoft's Online Push An Act Of Necessity, Not Desperation

Microsoft's launch Sunday of new online software is being widely seen as a desperate, defensive measure against Google, IBM, OpenOffice and other Web 2.0 challengers to its Office franchise. But the numbers show Office is stronger than ever -- what's really going on?

Continue reading "Microsoft's Online Push An Act Of Necessity, Not Desperation..."

Motorola Makes Good On Messenger 5, Delivers Mobile E-Mail

First announced earlier this year, Motorola has finally made its Good Mobile Messenger 5 e-mail program available to enterprises looking for an alternative to BlackBerrys. How does it compete?

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A Safer Firing

There really is no good way to fire someone (but there are lots of bad ways, as I discussed previously). But beyond making a painful situation as painless as possible, is the need for managers to protect themselves in the process.

Continue reading "A Safer Firing..."

Does AT&T Hate The First Amendment?

According to Gizmodo, AT&T has modified its Terms of Service in such a way that could allow the carrier to drop customers who say things that the company doesn't like. Holy 1984, Batman.

Continue reading "Does AT&T Hate The First Amendment?..."

Nokia's Acquisition Of Navteq Makes It A Major Player In Both Navigaton And The Web

So far 2007 has been about the smartphone, and in particular, one smartphone: the iPhone. But if Nokia's deal for Navteq is any indicator, 2008 could be the year of location.

Continue reading "Nokia's Acquisition Of Navteq Makes It A Major Player In Both Navigaton And The Web..."

Nokia Buys Mapping Company, Pokes Fun At Apple

Nokia made its biggest acquisition ever today by picking up Navteq for a cool $8.1 billion. It also unleashed a new ad campaign in NYC touting the benefits of unlocked operating systems. The iPhone 1.1.1 update backlash continues...

Continue reading "Nokia Buys Mapping Company, Pokes Fun At Apple..."

The Top Five Reasons The Mobile Web Rocks

Scott Karp over at Publishing 2.0 last week claimed that, bluntly, the mobile Web sucks. Karp is a blogger for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect, but, on this topic, he's totally wrong.

Continue reading "The Top Five Reasons The Mobile Web Rocks..."

The Business Case For An Internet Refrigerator

Internet refrigerators were a joke a few years ago, but RFID startup Blue Vector Systems says that it's finding real customers for them. The concept is similar to the vision of household appliances that automatically reorder groceries, only aimed at enterprise supply chains instead of home kitchens.

Continue reading "The Business Case For An Internet Refrigerator..."

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