Microsoft Shows Its IBMness
Firefox could rekindle genuine competition in the desktop software market--if enterprise IT organizations are willing to do their part.
Top Five BI Trends
The waning year saw major business intelligence trends on the user side that testify to the dynamism of BI as a technology. Here's a summary.
Wal-Mart's Linux Gambit
I'm no friend of Wal-Mart. During my college years back in North Carolina and Georgia, I watched as Sam Walton's "big box" retail outlets spread across the countryside like a bad rash, leaving one bombed-out small-town business district after another in their wake.
The Toughest CIO Job In The World
Imagine being the CIO of a newly created company with 180,000 employees and an annual budget topping $40 billion, including $226 million earmarked for enterprise technology investments. Task One: combine 22 diverse companies of size into a single enterprise with a unified architecture. Task Two: Help create imaginative use of technology to thwart terrorism.
Digital Music: Will Microsoft Eat Apple's Lunch Again?
There's a fight brewing between Microsoft and Apple over the future of digital music that reminds me of the long-ago battle between Macintosh and Windows. Apple got its clock cleaned then and it looks hellbent on making the same mistake now.
Personal Tech Today
Ready for CES in Las Vegas Jan. 6? It's THE annual religious festival for diehard gadget freaks. Whether you go or don't go, the event is sure to bring the coming year's coolest electronic toys out of the wordwork.
IBM: Boon Or Bane For Linux?
With IBM's recent sale of its PC division, things are about to get really interesting--but will the outcome ultimately be good or bad for Linux?
China Doesn't Need Chairman Bill
Could Microsoft be on the verge of 'losing' China as a major market? Could China's open-source developers play an important role in this turn of events, leaving Microsoft with no room to grow in the world's largest country?
Back To The Browser Wars
The move from Internet Explorer to Firefox is more like a mass exodus among tech-savvy users. Will a real competitive threat breathe some life back into Internet Explorer?
Top-Down Metrics
Performance metrics fall into a nebulous area of business intelligence that is neither technology- nor business-centered, but requires input from both IT and business people to come off successfully.
The GPL: Saving Software From Itself
The GPL says that as someone who runs a program, you're free to change and redistribute its source code--provided that you also offer the same rights to everyone who receives a copy.
Firefox Paws At IE
Firefox should be a no-brainer for widespread corporate deployment, but so far, that's not the case.
E-mail's Presidential Payoff
If you thought technology played a crucial role in last month's presidential election, that was only the beginning. Politicians have built a permanent onramp between the campaign trail and the information superhighway and will plan future campaigns mindful of what worked (or didn't work) in 2004. The future of campaigning isn't about how much technology a candidate has access to but how he uses that technology to outsmart his opponents.
A Question Of Style
Open-source software development is, for many of the people involved, a matter of style. Whether or not that's a gross generalization, it reflects a popular image of the open-source community: freewheeling, individualistic, and either irrepressibly creative or hopelessly chaotic, depending on one's point of view.
Say "Uncle"
The government is increasingly enlisting businesses to help fight terrorism, drug counterfeiting, and fraud. This means getting airlines, drug companies, financial service providers, defense department contractors, and telecommunication companies to invest in technology, the right technology. My December 13 feature entitled "Uncle Sam's Guiding Hand" addresses this issue in depth, but here's a preview of some key issues.
Enter Oracle
BI technology buyers will have more product options to consider next year than they've had this year, even as there's been consolidation among the traditional vendors.
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