Profile of Rob Preston

VP & Editor in Chief, InformationWeek Member Since: 11/15/2013
Author
Blog Posts: 310
Posts: 258 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.

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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SOPA: Stop Grandstanding, Start Crafting An Alternative

1/20/2012
If Congress is so clueless about Internet dynamics, it's up to SOPA opponents to create a workable alternative for stopping online content piracy.
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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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Avaya: IP Office 7.0 Takes The Cake

5/19/2011
Unified communications vendor rolls in celebrity baker Buddy Valastro to tout the latest version of its IP phone system for SMBs.
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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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Down To Business: Higher Education Is Ripe For Technology Disruption

5/13/2011
If you think online degrees will remain just a niche, consider the time when Borders and E.F. Hutton were touting their superior in-person experiences.
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Down To Business: IT's Lords Of Discipline

4/21/2011
Many business technology organizations still have a long way to go when it comes to project and portfolio management and functioning like a well-oiled machine.
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Down To Business: Public-Private Partnerships, The Good And The Bad

4/4/2011
Collaboration on big IT issues and projects is one thing; companies feeding at the government trough is another.
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Down To Business: The BrainYard Tackles The Hairiest Business Collaboration Issues

3/22/2011
Our new site delivers news and analysis you can trust -- and practical advice you can use -- in your mission to connect people, generate ideas, and create business opportunities.
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Down To Business: Don't Dismiss The iPad And Other Tablets As Just Hype

3/21/2011
There's no ignoring the iPad's market momentum, and if you think these devices aren't going corporate already, you haven't been paying attention
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Down To Business: Can The Healthcare Industry Handle All This IT?

3/1/2011
The hope is that the platforms healthcare providers are being dragged into deploying today will serve as the foundation for future innovation.
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Down To Business: The New Reality Of Tech Industry Consolidation

2/15/2011
New companies, including ones from outside IT, are getting into the tech M&A mix as the modest recovery accelerates deal-making.
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Down To Business: Why The Tech Industry Needs Founder-CEOs

2/1/2011
Those leaders adept at keeping costs down, M&As in motion, and regulators in check will always be valuable, but they usually don't build great companies.
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Down To Business: IT Spending's Heading Up, But Is It Headed In The Right Direction?

1/14/2011
The true measure of enterprise IT vitality will be whether CIOs get serious about rebalancing their spending mix.
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Down To Business: CES Goes Over The Top With 'Greenest' Claims

1/5/2011
Are there no limits to the industry's sanctimonious eco-friendly posturing?
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Innovation Mandate: Is America's STEM Education Deficit Overblown?

12/17/2010
In the second of our two-part series, we explore what needs to be done to solidify this nation's technical grounding
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Innovation Mandate: American Students Score 'C' In Math And Science

12/9/2010
In the first of a two-part series on STEM education, we look at the dim U.S. results on the latest PISA tests and ask: What's a country to do?
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Innovation Mandate: The Case For Less Regulation

11/17/2010
One think tank fellow thinks the key to spurring innovation and creating jobs is to put a moratorium on regs in a handful of industries, but only temporarily. His proposal doesn't go far enough.
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Federal Plans To 'Cut' Spending Don't Amount To Much

11/11/2010
When it comes to government outlays on IT or anything else, a dollar saved is rarely ever a dollar removed from a budget and returned to a taxpayer.
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Down To Business: Give Microsoft Some Credit

11/4/2010
It may not be on the cutting edge of most technology movements, but posting the highest quarterly revenue and profit in company history isn't tantamount to embarking on the Bataan Death March.
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Innovation Mandate Gets Glenn Beck Shout-Out

10/21/2010
The Fox News commentator, citing InformationWeek Analytics research, says the U.S. has gotten soft. But are we underestimating just how technically strong we really are?
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Down To Business: In Defense Of The IT Introverts

10/7/2010
Despite the conventional wisdom, extravert qualities aren't always the stuff of leadership, and introvert qualities aren't just shortcomings that must be overcome.
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Innovation Mandate: Is China Poised For Global Lead?

10/6/2010
China will pass the U.S. and Japan next year as the world leader in patent filings, according to a new report, which cites other innovation advances at the world's largest country and second largest economy.
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Innovation Mandate: Does America Have The Fire For Innovation?

10/1/2010
About a quarter of respondents to our Innovation Mandate survey view the current and emerging U.S. workforce as complacent when it comes to IT innovation.
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Innovation Mandate: Has America Lost Its Innovation Edge?

10/1/2010
In an ongoing series of articles, opinion columns, and executive interviews, InformationWeek will explore the issues driving and holding back U.S. tech innovation. First up: What our extensive research tells us.
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12 Most Disruptive Enterprise IT Vendors

9/23/2010
These vendors, large and small, are shaking up the status quo with their new products, approaches and models.
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Down To Business: Enterprise IT's Most Disruptive Vendors

9/23/2010
God bless the IT disrupters, those startups and established vendors that have caused enterprises to rethink and even redefine the way they evaluate, buy, deploy, manage, and use technology.God bless the IT disrupters, those startups and established vendors that have caused enterprises to rethink and even redefine the way they evaluate, buy, deploy, manage, and use technology.
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Down To Business: Culture Is Critical, So Work At It

9/9/2010
Even first-class corporate cultures must adapt and evolve. Take the case of Vanguard, our top InformationWeek 500 company.
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Down To Business: Why Some People 'Dread' Collaboration

9/2/2010
If workers use certain collaboration tools just because they're compelled to do so, they'll get lost in the white noise of misplaced communications.
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Down To Business: Patent Acquirer RPX On A Roll Against The Trolls

8/19/2010
The company now has sufficient revenue to buy $100 million in patents and patent rights a year as it shields members from "non-practicing entities."
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Who Should Hewlett-Packard Buy?

8/17/2010
HP can't afford to buy every one of our Desirable Dozen, but in the post-Mark Hurd era, the world's largest computer maker needs to consider acquiring more than a few of these companies. Here's who -- and why.
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Down To Business: Oracle Suit Casts Shadow On Rimini Gains

7/19/2010
Alternative provider of software support services gaining enterprise customers, despite Oracle suit's chilling effect.
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