Profile of Rob Preston

VP & Editor in Chief, InformationWeek

Member Since: 11/15/2013
Author
News & Commentary Posts: 338
Comments: 358

Rob Preston currently serves as VP and editor in chief of InformationWeek, where he oversees the editorial content and direction of its various website, digital magazine, Webcast, live and virtual event, and other products. Rob has 25 years of experience in high-tech publishing and media, during which time he has been a senior-level editor at CommunicationsWeek, CommunicationsWeek International, InternetWeek, and Network Computing. Rob has a B.A. in journalism from St. Bonaventure University and an M.A. in economics from Binghamton University.

Articles by Rob Preston

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Net Neutrality: Wellspring Of Terrible Analogies

12/15/2014
What is it about the net neutrality debate that inspires so many uninformed opinions and misguided comparisons?
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IT Chief Of The Year: Bank Of America's Cathy Bessant

12/1/2014
Bessant leads BofA's 100,000-person technology and operations group as the bank scraps back from financial and regulatory disaster. Her formula: Steady, reliable performance over glitz.
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Bank of America Tech Chief Cathy Bessant: What I Believe

12/1/2014
InformationWeek's 2014 Chief of the Year shares what being a cancer survivor taught her, why she dislikes rock-star CIOs, and more.
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CDOs Replace CIOs? I'm Not Buying It

11/5/2014
Marketing-minded chief digital officers aren't technical enough to lead the changes that companies need to make.
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Innovation 'Doesn't Just Happen'

10/30/2014
Fidelity Labs VP Hadley Stern on the steps companies can take to light the innovation fire.
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CIO Vs. CMO: Can't We All Just Get Along?

10/29/2014
PwC chief technologist Chris Curran discusses how to turn infighting between IT and marketing into a productive partnership.
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Amazon Isn't Evil

10/7/2014
The online retailer has its faults, but it's competing in business, not a bridge tournament.
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3 Trends Make Digital Disruption An Urgent Priority

9/26/2014
Join us at our InformationWeek IT Leadership Summit to sharpen your leadership skills and expand your strategic thinking about digital business.
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CIO Worries: Security, Talent & (Sadly) 'Alignment'

9/10/2014
SIM IT Trends Study also shows IT spending trending up.
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Digital Disruption Uber-Style Is Never Pretty

9/4/2014
The legal and regulatory backlash that ride-sharing company Uber faces in Germany will play out across many more industries.
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10 Secret Reasons Ballmer Bought LA Clippers

9/2/2014
Sure, running an NBA team can be fun and exciting, but here are the real reasons former Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer paid $2 billion of his own money for the franchise.
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SnapLogic CEO Talks About Changing Role Of IT

7/21/2014
Gaurav Dhillon says IT organizations need to change as quickly as the technology they deal with.
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Changing IT Organizations: Anaplan

7/21/2014
Anaplan CEO says the well known saying "the world is getting flat" should also apply to IT organizations.
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Microsoft Shows Tech 'Monopolies' Don't Last

7/18/2014
As nature abhors a vacuum, innovators abhor a monopoly, especially in the fast-paced IT industry.
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Digital Business Reality Check: InformationWeek Video

7/14/2014
Accenture's Mark McDonald, SnapLogic's Gaurav Dhillon, and UPMC's Rebecca Kaul weigh in on the practicalities of digital transformation.
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Accenture Strategy Talks Digital Strategy & Digital Disruption

7/14/2014
Mark McDonald discusses the need for a new definition of "digital" that is no longer based on something you own.
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Digital Strategy/Disruption: SnapLogic Interview

7/14/2014
SnapLogic CEO discusses how digital disruption will create new revenue streams in a variety of industries.
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UPMC Tech Dev Center Chief Discusses Digital Strategy/Disruption

7/14/2014
Rebecca Kaul discusses the importance of a separate development group that isn't part of core IT operations.
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Which IT Is Really Core? InformationWeek Video

6/23/2014
Box's Aaron Levie, GM's Randy Mott, and others weigh in on the role of outsourcing, insourcing, cloud.
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IT For Competitive Advantage Interview: Box

6/23/2014
Box CEO Aaron Levie discusses how to determine which IT systems are core for gaining competitive advantage.
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IT For Competitive Advantage Interview: General Motors

6/23/2014
Randy Mott, CIO at GM, discusses the challenges of how to scale core IT systems without losing agility.
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Supreme Court Toughens Business Process Patent Test

6/20/2014
Unanimous ruling says that an "abstract idea" isn't patent-eligible just because computers are used to apply it.
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Age Discrimination In IT: Know The Law

6/2/2014
Join us for a lively discussion and Q&A with a legal expert on this important topic for IT job seekers and managers.
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FCC Net Neutrality Flap: Fast Lanes Don't Scare Me

5/19/2014
Only the status quo will keep the Internet 'open,' net neutrality advocates insist. But a refined approach may ignite more network investment.
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Top 10 Secret Reasons Microsoft CEO Ballmer Retired

4/26/2014
Steve Ballmer didn't get the credit he deserved, as evidenced by Microsoft's strong financial position when he resigned. Here are 10 reasons you've never heard about why he stepped down.
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Top 10 Upsides To Healthcare.gov Debacle

4/16/2014
You didn't know there was a bright side to the botched rollout of the Obamacare website? Get your snark on.
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Top 10 Signs Your Company Isn't InformationWeek Elite 100 Material

4/2/2014
Gunning for InformationWeek's elite list of innovative companies? Better hope you don't meet any of these criteria.
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Top 10 Signs You're Not A Digital Business

4/2/2014
Consider the red flags that suggest your digital business strategy needs, ahem, a bit of work.
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GM's Randy Mott: What I Believe...

3/27/2014
CIO's five core principles underpin automaker's three-year "IT transformation" plan.
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NetApp In The Cloud Age: CEO Tom Georgens Q&A

2/26/2014
NetApp's CEO discusses cloud computing realities, the CIO role, software-defined storage, the Snowden effect, and more.
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Silicon Valley's 1%: Stinginess Is Not The Problem

2/4/2014
Are the people who drive Silicon Valley a bunch of self-centered elitists? Let's debate business diversity -- not make gross generalizations about "the wealthy."
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Oracle's Hurd: A 'Once-In-A-Career Opportunity'

1/29/2014
President Mark Hurd explains Oracle's strategy on cloud, marketing, innovation, and those pesky startup rivals.
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HP's Baez: We're No Longer 'Built For Slow'

11/22/2013
HP CIO discusses changing the company culture, spending more time with customers, and moving to cloud platforms to execute faster.
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SAP CEO Envisions Younger, Greener, Cloudier Company

11/20/2013
Bill McDermott is trying to change SAP's conservative, ERP-centric image for millennial employees and buyers.
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Welcome To The New InformationWeek

11/15/2013
We're leaving behind the old, one-way publishing model of business technology journalism and pioneering an approach that emphasizes community and true multiway discourse.
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Cisco's Chambers: Rival White Box Model 'Fatally Flawed'

11/15/2013
In a wide-ranging interview, the Cisco CEO acknowledges an industry battle ahead but insists his company's architectural approach will prevail.
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Chambers: Cisco Will Win Tech's Next Elimination Round

10/9/2013
Cisco CEO says half the top tech vendors won't "exist in a meaningful way" in a few years.
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Beware The Faux Innovators

9/6/2013
Before we can understand what innovation is, we must first understand what it's not.
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Death By A Million Regulations

8/14/2013
It is long past time to assess the consequences of the endless laws, codes, rules, licenses and guidelines governing just about every human activity.
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Creative Destruction Of Internet Age: Unstoppable

8/8/2013
Don't blame Jeff Bezos and the Silicon Valley set for the digital disruption in a range of industries, from journalism to railroads. Get on board.
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Hyper-Inflated Tech Stats Grow 217% Crazier

7/31/2013
The tech industry is rife with over-the-top, groundless predictions and estimates. Try these on for size.
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Quit Dithering On Digital Business Strategy

7/15/2013
Digital is the future of business, and the movement needs leaders. You in, CIOs?
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InformationWeek's Most Important Cover Stories

6/13/2013
We're giving up our paper magazine to go all-digital. Here's a look back at some of our best magazine work over 28 terrifically turbulent years.
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A New InformationWeek Era

6/12/2013
Our last print magazine ushers in a renewed commitment to innovating online, in digital magazines and in world-class live events.
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HP's Hinshaw At Center Of 5-Year Turnaround Plan

5/7/2013
As the leader of both IT and operations, John Hinshaw is uniquely positioned to get HP back on track.
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CA's Future: DevOps, Mobile, Analytics Key, CEO Says

4/23/2013
Mike Gregoire says company has an edge in big data analytics because it already looks at massive amounts of network, system, security and application management data.
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CIOs Must Innovate Or Go Home

4/3/2013
How can IT leaders drive profitable business innovation when they're so caught up in their day-to-day work? Learn from your peers who've done it.
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CIOs Must Embrace Digital Business

3/21/2013
The title 'chief digital officer' may yet go the way of the 'chief evangelist,' but the digital business movement is a force CIOs can't ignore.
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Yahoo Flap Misses The Bigger Point

2/28/2013
New CEO Marissa Mayer wants all company employees to work in the office. This isn't about exercising control; it's about setting a tone for change.
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Immigration Reform: Find The Middle Ground

2/27/2013
A 'virtual march' on Washington aims to bring more highly skilled technical workers into the U.S. It's time for a constructive debate rather than more vitriol.
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The Taxman Cometh For Big Data-Driven Companies

2/1/2013
Data-driven commerce is an economic good, not a bad, so we shouldn't consider taxing it like carbon emissions.
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Innovation In Spotlight, But Wrong Cast?

1/17/2013
Boston Consulting Group shines a klieg light on innovation, but lots of leading companies and industries go unnoticed.
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InformationWeek Education: Your New Guide To Higher Education IT

1/8/2013
Even if higher education is an industry and calling like no other, it must grow and evolve with its tech-literate clientele. Or it will whither.
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What CIOs Want In Their Successors

11/20/2012
Are you an aspiring CIO? Listen to what these leading CIOs say it will take for you to reach that coveted position.
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Is Technology Innovation Too Incremental?

11/19/2012
Two prominent big thinkers think it is. But I’m not buying their unsupported arguments.
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Are We Giving CIOs An Inferiority Complex?

11/1/2012
CIOs need to be technical, without apology, just as chief medical officers need not apologize for their grounding in medicine.
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When Incremental IT Change Won't Cut It

10/26/2012
For Indian pharma company Cipla and its new CIO, IT transformation is all or nothing.
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Are The CIO And IT Organization Replaceable?

10/5/2012
Technology spending and influence are moving outside of the IT department, but let's not lay a wreath for the IT pro just yet.
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Hypesters Put IT Credibility On The Line

9/26/2012
Business technology leaders and managers need to get into the habit of underpromising and overdelivering.
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Firefighters See Problems, CIOs Must See Opportunities

9/6/2012
As the IW 500 Conference kicks off this week, IT leaders rank BYOD and cloud among their biggest challenges. But the smartest CIOs look beyond the negatives.
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Flextronics App Gives Customers Peace Of Mind

9/5/2012
Electronics manufacturer's quality management software not only flags problems, but cuts costs, fosters collaboration, and improves time to market.
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Congress' $20 Billion Tech Mandate: Make Trains Safer

8/3/2012
Union Pacific is spending hundreds of millions on IT each year for the federal plan aimed at making train accidents less likely.
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Why Union Pacific Builds Its Own Tech

8/3/2012
The railroad often finds off-the-shelf software and hardware is too expensive and isn't tuned to its needs.
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Tech Hotshot, Want To Work At A Railroad?

8/3/2012
Union Pacific has to put a lot of energy into internships and recruiting to lure its IT talent.
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Sorry, But Outsourcing Isn't Evil

8/2/2012
Outsourcing remains pervasive in both the public and private sectors, and it's not going away, despite the widespread backlash.
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Randy Mott's Journey To General Motors

6/28/2012
The CIO's road through Wal-Mart, Dell, and HP was marked by very different cultures and expectations.
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U.S. Tech Leadership On Solid Ground, IT Pros Say

6/27/2012
But worries continue about offshoring of tech jobs and innovation, state of STEM education.
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What Can You Learn From IT Vendor M&As?

6/13/2012
A lot. Consider the track records of some of the most acquisitive IT vendors over the past few years: Salesforce.com, Oracle, IBM, SAP, Dell, and HP.
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IT As Profit Maker

5/31/2012
In defining your company's core operations, is IT one of them? Many non-IT companies have patented, trademarked, or copyrighted at least one tech innovation.
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Social Collaboration: A Work In Progress

5/18/2012
Improving collaboration continues to top executive priority lists, so let's revisit whether they're "teasing out" the right tools and techniques.
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An Open Internet: A Tale Of Two Approaches

4/25/2012
The Obama administration takes a hard line, while the Aspen Institute sticks with softer platitudes, as some governments try to restrict Internet freedoms.
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Do IT Execs Make Too Much Money?

4/18/2012
A Citigroup shareholder vote puts compensation back into the spotlight. Don't run with the "inequality" crowd.
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Federal IT Savings, Or Old-Fashioned Spending Shuffle?

4/5/2012
Fed CIO Steven VanRoekel is making fiscal headway, but we need to see those billions saved actually fall to the bottom line.
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7 Habits Of Innovative IT Leaders

3/29/2012
There's no manual for innovation, but consider these expert best practices and reader lessons learned.
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Google In Decline? Critics Protest Too Much

3/22/2012
Google remains well positioned despite its missteps and setbacks.
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Tech Talent Shortage, Or Busted Moral Compass?

3/20/2012
Readers weigh in on training, internships, partnerships, and 'cut-and-paste robotic HR people.'
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IT Vendors Inflate Job Creation Claims

3/7/2012
Microsoft, Apple, and others have commissioned studies showing they're spawning thousands of jobs. But they don't tell the whole story.
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Skills Shortage? Quit Whining

2/29/2012
If "people are our most important resource," why do most employers expect this precious asset to show up gift wrapped?
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Innovation Doesn't Happen By Chance

2/15/2012
IT organizations need to make the time for innovation, either formally or informally.
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The New IT Rulebook: Not For The Faint Of Heart

2/1/2012
Smaller, lighter, and more agile are more than just industry buzzwords. IT organizations that fail to lead those charges will get relegated to cost centers.
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10 Government Ideas To Spur Innovation

1/18/2012
More investment in basic research, STEM education, and entrepreneurship "clusters" are among the proposals in a 160-page Commerce Department report.
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5 Areas That Will Drive IT Spending

1/10/2012
We're a bit more bullish about 2012 than Gartner, which recently revised its spending forecast downward.
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Top 10 Tech Acquisitions Of 2011

12/16/2011
Among the trends that drove the biggest M&A deals: software as a service, mobility, big data, and social networking.
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AT&T-T-Mobile Wrangling: What A Waste

11/29/2011
Imagine if all the time and money spent on the wheeling and dealing around this merger were channeled into actually creating something of value.
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Foreigners Don't Take IT Jobs, They Create Them

11/9/2011
Research shows that immigrant-founded companies generate billions in revenue and employ hundreds of thousands of Americans, so why do so many people want to seal our borders?
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Avnet CIO Talks Cloud, BYOD

11/2/2011
Cost savings is a big consideration, says Avnet CIO Steve Phillips, but the global electronics distributor sees other advantages to giving employees choices.
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Oracle's Mark Hurd: We Know CIOs

10/27/2011
Responding to OpenWorld critics, Hurd makes the case for why customers need to put more of their eggs in the Oracle basket.
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Top 10 CIO Priorities

10/19/2011
Which issues are top of mind, or should be top of mind, for CIOs? Consider this list, gleaned from discussions with scores of U.S. and Indian CIOs, as well as from our own research.
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U.S. Ranked No. 1 In Tech Competitiveness

9/26/2011
The U.S is extending its global lead, according to a new study, but other countries are moving up the innovation chain.
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IT Greatness Vs. IT Risk

9/7/2011
While a new Harvard Business Review research article warns of the financial perils of big IT projects, business technology leaders must keep their eyes squarely on the upside.
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AT&T, T-Mobile Deal Word Of The Day: Bloviate

9/1/2011
Key players have an entertaining rhetoric romp as they talk up their defense of the little guy, American jobs, and spectrum exhaust.
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HP, VMware, AMD CEOs On Hot Seat

8/29/2011
With great power comes great pressure, tech CEOs are finding during this uncertain economic time.
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HP Must Decide What It Wants To Be

8/26/2011
CEO Leo Apotheker must articulate a vision that HP's employees can rally around and customers can understand.
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Millennials Aren't The Little Devils IT Imagines

8/12/2011
Research suggests 20-somethings think highly of IT organizations and don't flout IT conventions as often as some of us might suspect.
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5 Big Takeaways From Tech Earnings Season

7/22/2011
Most of the bellwether vendors reported solid revenue and profit growth in their latest quarters, suggesting that the tech economy is back on track.
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Language Of Social Sounds Too Soft To Business

6/24/2011
Why is Enterprise 2.0 still considered more of a "movement" than a business imperative? Its evangelists speak more like Dr. Phil than Jack Welch.
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Enterprise Software Failures Stem From Ignorance, Incompetence

6/21/2011
A veteran of Big Software implementations writes: These large implementations 'are hard work, but they are not rocket science.'
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Consumerization Of IT Is No Fad

6/16/2011
If you need any more proof, check out Microsoft's thinking about the key rivals to Windows Phone 7 and Office 365 in the enterprise.
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Down To Business: No One Wins An ERP Lawsuit

6/2/2011
Montclair State University is suing Oracle for a number of alleged offenses, but did it really need to come to this?
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Down To Business: Cisco, Microsoft, And The Tiger Woods Effect

5/19/2011
These still-dominant vendors aren't to be taken lightly, but competitors no longer show awe or fear.
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