Notify The Next Of Kin
There's a business strategy for new products that goes by the name of "fail fast, fail cheap". Perhaps that's the reason that Microsoft is pulling the plug on its Kin phones after just two months and one desperate price cut. But they didn't fail fast, and I doubt Kin's failure will be cheap.
Unidesk: A Companion To VDI
Every now and then, a technology comes along that's intriguing enough that I sit up and take notice. Unidesk, a start-up based in Massachusetts, recently introduced the concept of "composite virtualization," a technology that addresses a missing component in VDI implementations: user personalization. Now, you may be saying, "That's not new, it's existed forever in profile management and other tools." In this blog, I will explain why the way Unidesk approaches personalization really is n
Five Predictions Concerning Cloud Computing
It may be presumptuous to make predictions about cloud computing, since the cloud has such little history and is almost all about future potential. But here are a few prognostications, based on trends that have established the current cloud-computing paradigm.
Keeping Up With Smartphone Data-Storage Security
The more powerful your smartphone gets, the more likely you are to use it to store important business data. And that means paying closer attention to a couple of important storage security concerns.
Big Data is This Year's Hot Topic
Hadoop is a fast-growing choice for handling large-scale-data (as in petabytes) as well as complex-data (as in XML, e-mail, images and more) and mixed-data (as in structured mashed with semi-structured data types).
Machines Are Driving The Big-Data Era
Future big-data growth will be in the area of machine-generated data. In contrast to human-generated data, which can grow only as fast as human data-generating activities allow it to, machine-generated data is limited only by capital budgets and Moore's Law.
Summer Worker Security
Temporary and summer workers offer the chance to increase production -- and increase your security risks. But taking on summer help also offers the opportunity to review, refresh and enhance your security policies and practices.
Rock Star CIO Scores A CEO Seat
A rare few CIOs make the jump to CEO of their companies. Even fewer jump to vendor CEO roles. John Glaser's doing just that.
Wikileaks: An Enemy Of Open Society?
Steven Aftergood, who runs the Federation of American Scientists' Secrecy News site, on Monday dropped the hammer on Wikileaks, a Web site now infamous for exposing documents that countries and other powerful entities wish to keep secret. "WikiLeaks must be counted among the enemies of open society because it does not respect the rule of law nor does it honor the rights of individuals," declared Aftergood in a blog post.
Glaser Talks About Healthcare's Challenges, Opportunities
When longtime Partners Healthcare CIO John Glaser leaves his position in mid-August to join Siemens Healthcare as CEO of its Health Services Business Unit, he'll be bringing along solid, on-the-ground experience and insightful perspective about the many challenges facing the healthcare industry.
Verizon iPhone Rumors Heating Up
This isn't the first time we've heard Verizon would be getting the iPhone "soon." This rumor though has enough details to help its credibility. Think this one will come true?
HP's Confusing UC Strategy
HP continued to widen the circle of UC options. The company signed a three year deal so it will now be offering Avaya's broad portfolio of products, but questions remain about the viability of such agreements in the highly volatile UC marketplace.
The Effect of Cloud Computing On IT Staff
According to a new survey, there are significant discrepancies between what IT management thinks of cloud computing and the opinion of IT staffers. Is it because staffers view the cloud as a threat, and are they correct to do so?
My Feelings About Sentiment Analysis
Growth in visibility, acceptance, and adoption of automated sentiment-analysis solutions has been fueled by vendor innovations and by positive customer experiences, reports Elizabeth Glagowski in 1to1 magazine. Liz interviewed me for her article, and with her permission, I will share the full text of our exchange with readers...
Open Letter To Jack Domme, CEO, Hitachi Data Systems
A few weeks ago, HDS put together its first-ever blogger day, hopefully the first of many. Titled "HDS Blogger Day 0.9," I and other bloggers had access to an impressive lineup of executives and technical leaders. The company's CEO, Jack Domme, attended the dinner after the event, a great show of support for the community in general.
But I do have some remaining questions.
Nokia's Troubles
While Nokia continues to have large sales figures, it is mostly because of the low end freebies that carriers give away with a contract. They get to count a lot of those phones as smartphones simply because they have some version of Symbian on them, even though not many of those owners ever install a third party app. The truth is, Nokia is in trouble in the smartphone world. They are making changes, but will they be enough?
The Planet Opts for Dell R710 Servers
Houston-based hosting firm The Planet has announced a new service called the Server Cloud, which depends on standard Dell servers for fast provisioning.
Looking for Free Voice Services?
Free has become a watchword among consumers when it comes to Internet services. Could that term soon be used for business telephony systems? InVox, a four year old cloud based telephony services vendor, thinks so.
If Growth Is Back, Is IT Ready?
As more CIOs get back into growth mode, what are they worried about? Speed and budgets, but so much about business-IT "alignment."
Microsoft's Slow Path To IE 9
The current round of the browser wars has been marked by near constant upgrades and innovations (typified by Google's five updates of Chrome in less than two years). All of which makes Microsoft's slow progress to IE 9 somewhat surprising.
Apple Sells 1.7M iPhones In 3 Days
Apple announced this morning that it sold more than 1.7 million iPhones between Thursday, June 24, and Saturday, June 26. CEO Steve Jobs called it the most successful product launch in Apple's history.
Knock-offs Impact Smartphone Market
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but chances are the executives at Apple and Research in Motion are not enamored with the attention their smartphones are receiving. Chinese manufacturers have developed clones, which are proving to be quite popular.
Windows Phone 7 Missing A Number Of Features
Windows Phone 7 is nearing "gold" status so they can release it to the carriers and manufacturers for final testing and device production. There are a number of features that simply won't be in the initial release. Will it matter or is the target market for the device less discerning than the smartphone enthusiast?
Is Silverlight A Dead End?
When Microsoft released Silverlight in 2007, it was widely seen as an attack on Adobe's Flash player. Silverlight has come a long way since then, adding lots of features in version 4.0 that was just released in April. One thing that it hasn't done, though, is kill Flash. If anything, the predator is now suffering from friendly fire at the hands of its own company.
When Google Analytics Is Not Enough
Google's free service has become the most widely deployed Web analytics solution in the world... but for some enterprises, it's not sufficient. How can you know for sure whether Google is the right choice for your organization?
Microsoft's Ad-Serving Machine
Let's face it, Microsoft has an uphill battle in jump-starting their morbid mobile strategy. The early peeks at Windows Phone 7 show that it may be able to compete as a mobile platform. Assuming, of course, that Microsoft doesn't screw up some other aspect.
iPhone 4 Launch: 1.5M Sold, 77% To Upgraders
Apple has not yet released official iPhone 4 sales figures, but analysts guess that most of the approximate 1.5 million iPhones sold opening weekend are going to previous iPhone owners.
Windows Phone 7 An 'Ad Machine'? No Thanks
Microsoft needs Windows Phone 7 to be a success when it launches later this year. Calling it an "ad-serving machine" is not going to help Microsoft sell many Windows Phone 7 devices.
Oracle Offering CTO In A Box
Putting more muscle at the point of revenue, Oracle is supplying its largest customers with "client architects" to advise CIOs "on how to shape their architectures in concert with Oracle's investments," says company president Charles Phillips. He added that these technical advisors "essentially serve as dedicated CTOs for our large customers."
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