InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

10 Lessons Learned By Big Data Pioneers
How can you prepare for the big data era? Consider this expert advice from IT pros who have wrestled with the thorny problems, including data growth and unconventional data.
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VMware Pricing Controversy: Exclusive User Research
Check out what IT pros had to say about VMware's recent licensing policy change in this InformationWeek.com survey.
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Top 20 Add-Ons For Microsoft SharePoint
Boost SharePoint's collaboration and file-sharing powers with third-party add-ons. Here's a visual tour of some favorites.
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Adobe CS 5.5: Evaluating Bundle, Feature Upgrades
Flash, Photoshop, Acrobat, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver are among the updated Adobe Creative Suite bundles. Take a look inside a few along with the latest feature enhancements.
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11 iPad Apps For Better Collaboration
The Apple iPad's inherent mobility makes it an obvious weapon for efficient enterprise collaboration--provided you're armed with the right apps.
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Mozilla's Web-Only Operating System Layer
Essentially a stripped-down browser, the Mozilla web-only operating system layer has much in common with Google Chrome.
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8 Great Collaboration Tools For HR
In the era of the "social enterprise," collaborative activities can make a big difference not only in HR efficiency but in employee satisfaction. Take a look at these eight leading HR platforms and examples of what their collaboration features have done for other companies.
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Office 365 Vs. Google Apps: Top 10 Enterprise Concerns
Is Microsoft Office 365 ready to rumble with the ease of use and lower cost of archrival Google Apps? Consider this point-by-point comparison for enterprises.
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My Mistake: 10 CIOs Share Do-Over Worthy Moments
Leading CIOs share the decisions that they'd still like to take back. Check out their lessons learned from mistakes on costs, culture, career path, and more.
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100 Years Of IBM: 25 Historic Milestones
IBM this week celebrates 100 years of innovation and business optimization. From punch cards to the S/360, from tabulators to teraflops, from CEO Watson to supercomputer Watson, IBM has a unique history. Take a visual tour back through the decades.
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12 Brawny Business Intelligence Products For SMBs
Business intelligence isn't just for the big boys anymore. Check out our short list of star SMB options, from easy-to-deploy SaaS choices to affordable versions of the biggest BI suites.
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InformationWeek Analytics Presents: The Best of Interop 2011
Well, the votes are in and once again we're pleased to bring you the top new products that appeared at Interop 2011 Las Vegas. Every year, my fellow judges and I are delighted to be able to review and compare some of the hottest technology available, and this year was no exception. This year we had 135 qualified entries for Best of Interop, and in reviewing the nominees this year the trend seems to be a focus on a number of great products to allocate, secure, manage, and improve the performance of what's becoming an increasingly extended IT environment. In previous years, the emphasis was on providing many of the underlying technologies for virtualized and cloud resources, but for 2011 a number of the contenders for Best of Interop are looking at ways to provide better visibility and control of these distributed types of services. Recent headlines about service outages in the cloud just reinforce the need for products and services that not only enable the use of distributed resources, but protect and provide contingencies for cloud workload interruptions; whether they are internal or external to your enterprise. -- Steven Hill -- Lead Judge, Best of Interop 2011
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Best Of Interop 2011 Finalists
The Best of Interop Awards recognize exhibitors that have made significant technological advancements in specific category areas. The winners in each category represent the products that the judges believe have the most significant technical impact on their segment, and are helping to move business technology forward. This year, more than 100 candidates were under consideration for Best of Interop and here we present the 2011 finalists in each category.
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Top 10 Mobile Apps For Business Collaboration
Collaboration is one of today's strongest business trends, fueled in part by advances in (and employees' experiences with) social media. The ability to exchange ideas and communicate about activities has proven wildly popular in the social sphere -- why not in the business one as well? And recognizing this demand, vendors are making tools available that enable teams to keep track of each others' progress on a group project, exchange information about tasks and contacts, and otherwise work together more smoothly and conveniently. At the same time, though, the trend toward worker mobility continues to grow. More and more workers find themselves working out of the office, on the road or telecommuting, and keeping in touch via their smartphone. These 10 mobile apps will keep the collaborative momentum going no matter where you are.
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Top 15 Cloud Collaboration Apps
Judging by the investments that developers -- both well-established and start-ups -- are making in the collaboration market, software vendors are paying more than lip service to the adage that no man is an island. Certainly, businesses are investigating -- and investing in -- tools that help employees brainstorm, locate each other, schedule meetings, and communicate via social networks. Collaboration technology itself covers a broad spectrum of devices, from instant messaging and email, to cell phones and videoconferencing equipment. The cloud empowers individuals to use these tools practically anywhere, further boosting corporate productivity and spurring investment. Here's 15 of the leading cloud collaboration applications.
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Broadvision's Clearvale Express Offers Free Social Media Capabilities
Broadvision has introduced Clearvale Express, a SaaS-based social networking/enterprise 2.0 application that makes it possible for a company to provide workers with a Twitter-like activity stream that lets you know what your colleagues are working on, collaborate on files and tasks, and build collaborative communities. Workers can follow other users and view a simple Facebook-like profile wall on each user of the company network within Clearvale Express. The application is a stripped down version of Broadvision's full enterprise-class Clearvale. For small businesses or departments looking for a way to add a social element to business interactions, it can be an effective tool. Businesses and organizations using Clearvale Express that want to invite users with different email domains to collaborate with their employees need to make sure at sign-up that they use the link for membership organizations, as the default sign-up for Clearvale Express works only if all member of the network have the same email domain.
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Internet Explorer 9 Fast, Powerful, Intuitive
The browser wars are back and bigger than ever. Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, and Opera are all providing innovative, fast, and streamlined experiences for surfing the Web. And now, with the release of Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft joins in with arguably the best Web browser the company has ever released. With a revamped interface, improved security and privacy options, and much better performance, IE 9 compares well with competing browsers. Traditionally a laggard in performance tests, IE 9's new Web and JavaScript engines put it back among the pack in general performance tests and even slightly in the lead for JavaScript performance. IE 9 has also added many long missing features, such as a download manager and integrated search.
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Google Chrome 10 Boosts Performance, Management
Google releases a new version of its Web browser every six weeks, so a new release of the Chrome browser is usually light on new features. That's true for Chrome 10, but the improvements in the new version of the browser are welcome. Probably the biggest new feature is the new Crankshaft V8 engine for JavaScript. Along with other performance improvements, the JavaScript engine clearly puts Chrome right at the top of browser performance, based on a variety of benchmarks. Chrome 10 has also added a new interface for configuring browser options, improved the ability to sync settings across browser installations, and has added additional security layers for Flash content running in the browser.
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