My Last Essay
This is my last essay for InformationWeek, as we're putting things on hiatus so I can focus on writing my next book in 2010. There are a few things I want to say before I go...
The Lighter Side of Consulting
The other day I ran into an old Consulting mentor of mine. Smooth, superior and self-assured, the man was Consulting Personified. But now gone were the suit and smirk, replace by sneakers, stubble and a sullen look. Could it be The Curse of the Consultant?
U.S. Pushes For EMR Standards
The proposal for widespread adoption of Electronic Medical Records standards could accelerate the disbursement of $19 billion in federal stimulus funds.
Apple Tablet Success Riding On Touch-Panel Patents
In my recent story on the Apple iSlate speculation, I pointed to Windows tablets to make the point that Steve Jobs and company don't invent things, they perfect them. But when I wrote that Apple doesn't have any tablet patents, a reader noted that what Apple does have is multi-touch interface patents. And those will be the key to the Apple tablet.
LCD TV Sales Boom Foreseen In 2010
While worldwide shipments rose 1 percent this year, they're expected to ramp 22 percent to 171 million units in 2010, according to DisplaySearch.
The Myth Of Reliability
Two outages for BlackBerry users around Christmas prompted many complaints and threats from angry users via online forums, blog posts, and tweets. I'm not sure if there's really an issue here.
MySQL's Former Owner Can't 'Save' It After Selling It
Monty Widenius continues his campaign to save MySQL from falling into Oracle's possession with a script that would have been suitable, perhaps, for the Perils of Pauline. The whole problem with "saving" MySQL at this point is that its most outspoken defenders chose to sell it to Sun, a firm on the brink of collapse.
E-Sales In Holiday Surge
Social network marketing, poor weather, and free shipping offers helped push online shopping to a 5% gain during the 2009 holiday season.
Eleven BI/Analytics Topics for 2010
This time of year, we pundit types like to post our summations of the past year's developments, our Best Of lists recapping our own work, and our industry predictions for next year, for 2010. Not me, not this year. I will, however, post on the year ahead... for me, on BI and analytics topics that I plan to cover in the next few months...
Windows 7 Year In Review
The operating-system buzz in 2009 may have been split 60/40 between Windows 7 and Google Chrome OS, but only the former is here today. As to whether a Web-centric OS like Chrome can ultimately edge out the most polished traditional desktop version ever, that's yet to be determined. During 2010, though, I expect that Windows 7 will increase its footprint, as enterprises initially wary of adoption begin to fold Win7 boxes into heterogeneous environments.
AT&T Resumes Online iPhone Sales
AT&T has resumed sales if the iPhone in New York city via their website. I tested a few zip codes in the area and both the 3G and 3GS models are available, as well as refurbished phones. For whatever reason AT&T pulled them over the weekend from the website, they have apparently reversed course.
Salesforce.com's Wizard Was Parker Harris And Team
Much has been recorded about the rise of Salesforce.com and how Marc Benioff's clever marketing brought the company to the forefront. Today, with its stock reaching new highs, I wanted to pay tribute to a giant of cloud computing, Parker Harris, the technology magician behind the marketing who made Benioff's story possible.
Firefox Prepares To Make Its Smartphone Debut
According to the BBC, the first mobile phone version of Firefox is only "days away" from release. In reality, however, most mobile users at small and midsize companies will be in for a much longer wait.
Oracle Lifts Cloud Over MySQL Storage Engine Vendors
Earlier this month, Oracle put out a press release promising to play nicely with MySQL if its Sun takeover is approved... Point #2 is the biggie, lifting a major cloud from the MySQL storage engine business.
MyYearbook Speeds Web Responses
EXtremeDB, McObject's in-memory, object-oriented database, helps MyYearbook meet the high performance demands of the social networking site.
Intelligent Enterprise 2010 Event Calendar
If it's about information management, business intelligence, enterprise applications, processes or architecture, it's listed in our annual guide to technology events. Make your plans for the can't-miss conferences, expos and summits of 2010.
2010 And Cloud Storage
In 2010 cloud storage will continue to grow in use but like my other 2010 entries, next year won't be the "year" of cloud storage. As we discussed in our article "What is Cloud Storage", people and organization
Online Shopping Breaks Records
Coupons and other incentives helped push online retail to record-breaking levels over the holiday shopping season, said comScore.
Google AdMob Buy Opposed
Consumer groups said the acquisition would diminish competition in mobile advertising and raise privacy concerns.
Intel Recap: Atom, Nehalem Were 2009 Highlights
For processor-architecture voyeurs of the Intel variety, 2009 was most interesting for the emergence of the low end as market segment with legs enough to compete with traditional laptops. (Read: Atom and netbooks.) At the same time, servers got a big kicker with release of the Nehalem line in April.
Integration: ECM Curse and Opportunity
With the proliferation of enterprise content management (ECM) vendors at many organizations, a new challenge is developing around managing federated ECM systems. Can the content management applications within an organization be integrated to help users find the information they need?
AT&T Halts Online iPhone Sales In NYC
AT&T has halted online sales of the iPhone in New York City. You can verify this by going to AT&T's online site and entering a NYC zip code. Sure enough, I entered a Brooklyn zip code and the iPhone was missing. When I changed it to my southern California zip, the iPhone 3GS and 3G showed up in the list. What is going on?
Reviewing The Year's Storage News Highlights
Over the past couple of weeks, I slogged through the usual endless series of storage-related "best of" and prediction articles. Finally, here's one that is actually worth sharing.
Five Tech Startup Predictions For 2010
It's that time of the year again when everyone provides their predictions for the upcoming year. I'd like to take a look at five predictions for 2010 related to tech startups.
The Decade Of Windows 7
As 2010 approaches, Windows 7 seems to be experiencing a successful launch and warm reception from both businesses and consumers. I've just switched over to Windows 7 for my day-to-day desktop, and definitely think it's an improvement over both XP and Vista. That's fortunate, because I suspect we'll all be using Windows 7 for most of the next decade.
Santa Claus, Technology Propagandist
A good number of kids will go to bed tonight thinking at least two things about the traditions of Christmas: first, they'll consciously be thankful and thrilled about their presents and, unconsciously, they'll have been further indoctrinated into the miracles of technology.
The Perfect Office Mac?
German tinkerer Klaus Diebel will modify your old iMac so that it makes coffee but still functions as a Macintosh.
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