InformationWeek Daily - Monday, April 21, 2008

What's The Hardest CIO Job? It must be tough to run IT in a big bank these days, what with all the regulation and oversight going on. Logistics and shipping companies put a strain on IT systems. Google's CIO just left, perhaps for good reason. However, my nomination for the toughest CIO job is... ... the Department of Homeland Security's top tech spot. Last week, President Bush announced his intention to appoint a new CIO for DHS. His name is Richard Mangogna, and he works as a consultant for the Mason Harriman Group, a New Jersey firm that specializes in executive "hired guns" -- CIOs and CFOs brought in to help complete IT projects. It looks like there's something of a revolving door on the CIO's office at DHS. The department's previous CIO, Scott Charbo, left in February to become Deputy Under Secretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD), part of DHS. His deputy, Charles Armstrong, has been acting as interim DHS CIO, but he's leaving to be CIO of Customs and Border Protection, also part of DHS, according to reports. Steve Cooper was Homeland's first CIO from 2003 to 2005, when he left to take the CIO job at the American Red Cross. Little wonder, though, that the CIO tenure at DHS is relatively short: Talk about an integration nightmare. With more than 200,000 employees and a budget of almost $45 billion, Homeland Security is the third-largest department in the federal government, behind only Defense and Veterans Affairs. Then there's the politics -- not only office politics, but politics politics. For instance, last year members of a House committee raked Charbo over the coals for some cybersecurity problems. Mangogna may have the chops to make it work. Before going to Mason Harriman, he was CIO of JP Morgan Chase, and before that the division head of Business Re-engineering Management at Chase Manhattan Bank, according to the statement by the White House. I wish Mr. Mangogna the best of luck. There's nothing I want more than for the CIO of the Department of Homeland Security to succeed. I wouldn't want the job. Not that anybody asked me. What do you think? Leave a comment here . John Soat jsoat@cmp.com www.informationweek.com
"We learn something every day, and lots of times it's that what we learned the day before was wrong." -- Bill Vaughan
Web 2.0 Expo Preview: Web 2.0 Isn't Just About The Apps Businesses need to transform to adopt Web 2.0. But it isn't easy, as Dell's experience -- trying to address rotten customer service with Web 2.0 -- shows. Related Stories: InformationWeek's Web 2.0 Coverage Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008 Home Page CNN Faces Cyberattack Over Tibet Coverage Security experts and researchers are mixed on whether the attacks, reportedly scheduled around 8 p.m. on April 19, Beijing time, will happen. Boston Settles For Hotspot Patchwork After Municipal Wi-Fi Fades Away The latest addition to the hodgepodge of restaurants, coffee shops, and libraries offering free Wi-Fi is FreeFi Networks' hotspot at Roxbury Community College. Apple Ends Stealth Safari Installs Via Software Update For Windows The latest version of the Software Update tool for Windows, version 2.1.0.110, now clearly lists software that can be downloaded via the service and groups the updates together. MacBook Pro Customers Report Blank Screens The display problem occurred after users deployed the high-end notebook's latest firmware upgrade. Microsoft Tests 'Albany' Subscription Software Program The service is meant to bolster the company's presence in the booming Web services market while protecting its multibillion-dollar packaged software franchise. Motorola Offers Port Diversity On RFID Reader With its XR450 platform, mono- and bi-static ports can be activated depending on requirements and local signal propagation issues, the company said. FCC Hearing On Network Management Draws Net Neutrality Supporters Speakers at the Stanford University meeting want policymakers to require cable and telecommunications companies to manage Internet traffic in a non-discriminatory way. IBM Acquires Storage De-Duplication Company Diligent Diligent, whose technology provides single-instance storage, is the third storage-related acquisition for IBM since January. Microsoft Broadens RFID Integration The company's latest BizTalk RFID software aims to foster management and integration of RF-based applications across the enterprise. Nintendo Wii Sales Trounce Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 Sales were sparked by the recent launch of the hit game Super Smash Bros. Brawl -- a Wii exclusive. Mac Clone Maker Psystar Shuts Online Store Again The company said it would honor existing orders from customers who've already paid for their systems. Motorola Reorganizes Mobile Devices Unit Executive Staff Rob Shaddock, a senior vice president who had directed the unit's features phones including its hit RAZR, was named head of consumer products. All Our Latest News See InformationWeek's daily breaking news on your mobile device, visit wap.informationweek.com and sign up for daily SMS notifications.	CNN Faces Cyberattack Over Tibet Coverage Boston Settles For Hotspot Patchwork After Municipal Wi-Fi Fades Away Apple Ends Stealth Safari Installs Via Software Update For Windows MacBook Pro Customers Report Blank Screens Microsoft Tests 'Albany' Subscription Software Program Virtualization At The Desktop? Examine how more than 250 companies plan to adopt server virtualization technology in this recent InformationWeek Research report, Server Virtualization. The BI Explosion Examine the business intelligence strategies of 500 companies, including deployment drivers and challenges, spending plans, and vendor selection, in this recent InformationWeek Research report. Google Apps Needs To Grow Up If Google Apps wants to play in the big leagues with its desktop software service, it needs to grow up. Vague details about a blip in service for Gmail isn't going to cut it in the corporate world, even if Gmail was acting up for less than an hour on Wednesday. Don't Be A Control Freak How can CIOs control the end run around IT? They can't -- that's the lesson from a new CIO survey. Live with it, loosen up, and keep track of where IT dollars actually are going. Qualcomm Finally Launches MediaFLO In Its Hometown San Diego, home of cellphone chip giant Qualcomm, is finally being blanketed by Qualcomm's MediaFLO mobile TV network. This comes some 14 months after Qualcomm's partner, Verizon Wireless, launched its branded V CAST Mobile TV service in other parts of the country. Why the long delay? Windows Needs A Good Pruning Responding to last week's blog entry about the Gartner "Windows is Collapsing" Affair, one reader took me to task in calling Vista "bloated." His point was that one person's bloat is another person's essential feature. That certainly can be true, but features that the user sees aren't the only thing that contribute to bloat. Microsoft needs to move aggressively to trim the fat out of Windows, regardless of its source. YouTube Changes Up Policy Enforcement YouTube has modified the way in which it will go after those who post copyrighted material or objectionable videos. Of course, the new rules stirred some outrage among certain users who feel targeted by the "YouTube Police". No Desktop Linux For Red Hat? No Problem Is it really the worst thing in the world if Red Hat doesn't want to make a consumer-grade desktop Linux distribution? I don't think so. With all the things Red Hat already does so well, it's not as if they're missing out -- and if other people are already hard at work on that project, Red Hat still won't be missing out. This is open source, remember? Nokia CEO Disses iPhone, Doesn't Seem Worried That U.S. Market Share Slipped Again I am beginning to despair that Nokia will never understand the U.S. market. As its recently revealed quarterly earnings tell us, its share of the market here dropped yet again. Despite the fact that Nokia is building a touch-enabled device that looks eerily similar to you-know-what, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo called the iPhone a "niche" product. The Video Mash Thankfully, as the popular press tries to make anything that is a combination of two things a "mashup," the trend is actually now toward building enterprise-class services to create enterprise-class mashups. The litany of companies (new and old) we talked to at the recent Mashup Camp in Mountain View, Calif., was a respite from the Map + Something Else mentality of the early mashup days. Ever Lose A Smartphone? I've lost a number of them, and each time I've left behind a smartphone or PDA, I've worried not so much about the device -- but the personal data it holds. Kaspersky Lab is offering what could be a viable solution. When Open Source Closes Up A Little When MySQL / Sun announced the other day that some advanced features of future versions of MySQL would only be made available in the enterprise (read: for-pay) edition of the product, people began fulminating openly about Sun's commitment to open source. The MySQL situation itself isn't anywhere nearly as dire as it might sound, but that doesn't make people bristle any less. Do We Need To Legislate Common Courtesy? Turns out cell phone users are jerks the entire world over. On top of this week's proposed ban on in-flight calling in the United States, the mayor of a city in Austria has demanded that cell phone users on public transit keep their phones in silent mode. These are signs that a mobile society is not a polite one... 5 Areas Where Apple's iPhone Falls Short For two weeks now, I've been the relatively happy owner of an iPhone. Still, I have some major complaints, and I know the folks in Cupertino are just waiting to hear what I've got to say. The problem is that the iPhone is a great gadget and conversation-starter, but not yet a true corporate tool. Intalio|On Demand Intalio|On Demand delivers BPM functionality in a Software-as-a-Service model. Intalio|Business Process Platform provides modeling, execution, workflow, and montioring for your complex business processes. How Operations Supports Business Service Management This webinar explains how IT operations are becoming increasingly focused on business, and it will demonstrate how a new Business Service Platform can process metrics to support Business Service Management initiatives. Intelligent Merchandising: Creating a Unique Shopping Experience, Part 1 Learn how you can how you can hook customers with fresh, unusual and relevant shopping experiences. 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