December 13, 2011 13 Dec'11

Cloud security planning should be part of strategy from beginning

What are you doing about cloud security planning? I say planning because, in a survey of attendees at the recent SearchCompliance.com Making the Case for the Cloud virtual seminar, more than ...

December 13, 2011 13 Dec'11

Application portals for managing mobile devices no joke

CIOs are turning to application portals to meet mobile needs while protecting corporate IT policies.

December 08, 2011 08 Dec'11

Software laden with technical debt heading for a crash

Enterprise apps are carrying millions of dollars in technical debt, one study says. CIOs need to zero in on the mistakes that could level their companies.

December 05, 2011 05 Dec'11

Can you use the Kindle Fire for business?

Each week, we mine the Web for the jewels of knowledge that appeal to CIOs. This week, we're looking at the trend of using the Kindle Fire in business, what compels women to quit their IT teams and ...

December 02, 2011 02 Dec'11

Are you at risk? Huge Java vulnerability now weaponized and exploited

It's every CIO's worst nightmare -- that panicked call when you least expect it, delivering the worst possible news: "The firewall has been breached." We know that you do everything possible to ...

November 14, 2011 14 Nov'11

Tweak your corporate Twitter policy or risk getting p0wned

Each week we scour the Web and bring you the freshest scoop from around the blogosphere. This week, we're serving up tasty helpings of corporate Twitter intellectual property questions, IT ...

November 01, 2011 01 Nov'11

PCI DSS compliance may be the answer to more than credit card privacy

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard -- PCI DSS -- has been around for a few years and has seemingly done a good job of keeping credit card data safe. No, it's not a binding regulation, ...

October 31, 2011 31 Oct'11

How to be a strategic leader in the IT industry

What happened in the IT world last week? Here's the scoop on what you might have missed, including how IBM set an example for strategic leadership, Hewlett-Packard Co.'s recent decision and cloud ...

October 25, 2011 25 Oct'11

Apple's Siri speaks to iPhone users, but what is the message?

Full disclosure: I've been an iPhone user since 2008 and I just bought my second iPad. So, I'm not bashing Apple products, and I'm not bashing iPhone users or users of Apple products in general. ...

October 20, 2011 20 Oct'11

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo urges creative destruction

Creative destruction. I've heard that term a lot this year, although it's hardly a new concept. From what's happening with the Occupy Wall Street madness to the pressure to innovate in the IT ...

October 17, 2011 17 Oct'11

The fallout from the BlackBerry outage

Here's what you may have missed last week while you were standing in line to get your new iPhone 4S or waiting for your email during the cataclysmic BlackBerry outage: • As anyone with a ...

October 11, 2011 11 Oct'11

What can we learn from the Steve Jobs Way?

There have been many timelines, retrospectives and other examinations of Apple founder Steve Jobs' career, aka the Steve Jobs Way, and it would be a waste if we don't learn lessons from him about ...

October 10, 2011 10 Oct'11

Be more effective by increasing your business storytelling

It's been a busy week around the Web, and chances are you missed some things. Between the news of the iPhone 4S and Steve Jobs' death, it seems like the Web was absolutely sticky with Apple juice ...

October 04, 2011 04 Oct'11

Strong passwords are more important than ever

I recently asked one of my sons for passwords to his online accounts, for gaming, email, etc. Not because I'm nosy but because I'm trying to be a responsible parent and home IT administrator, and ...

October 03, 2011 03 Oct'11

Whatever happened to last year's promising iPad clones?

Things getting hectic as you enter Q4? It seems like no matter what you do, you still just keep feeling like you're two steps behind. We know how it feels, and we're here to make it better. We've ...

September 27, 2011 27 Sep'11

GE's journey from waterfall to Agile practices

General Electric Co. turned to Agile practices to revamp software development in its Energy division. Now Agile is making its way across the company.

September 27, 2011 27 Sep'11

SIM CIO survey: IT budgets trend up, BI reigns as top CIO investment

When asked, "Are you better off than you were three years ago?" most IT organizations answer in the affirmative. IT budgets, hiring and salaries are on the rise at the majority of companies, ...

September 21, 2011 21 Sep'11

Taking business back from cloud service providers

One in five of the companies responding to a Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) survey of cloud trends said they are moving some or all of their outsourced cloud systems back ...

August 30, 2011 30 Aug'11

Rooftop solar panels look to be a sound green investment

Rooftop solar panels are finally turning on a light bulb over some business leaders' heads. A big office park in my town is putting up solar panels on the roofs of two parking garages on its ...

August 22, 2011 22 Aug'11

Death to the HP TouchPad tablets! Long live the king!

It's been a busy week in tech, with the demise of WebOS on everyone's lips and the inevitable budget crunch as we prepare for 2012. Never fear: We've scoured the Web so you don't have to! Here's a ...

August 16, 2011 16 Aug'11

How the Google acquisition of Motorola affects your mobile workforce

It's been a busy week in tech. Google's acquisition of Motorola has everyone wondering how it will affect their mobile workforce. Here's a tasting menu of the choicest bits around the Web, ...

July 29, 2011 29 Jul'11

Does your Internet usage policy make your employees cry?

How are you feeling today? Lonely? Upset? Vaguely withdrawn from society? If so, quick -- check your Twitter stream on your smartphone. Better now? We've all heard BlackBerry jokingly referred to ...

July 26, 2011 26 Jul'11

IT transformation means one thing: New IT job skills needed

I found it amusing/disturbing during the NFL player lockout that players were worried about making ends meet. Many players should certainly learn new job skills for when their playing days end, but ...

July 22, 2011 22 Jul'11

Comic-Con: IT innovation lessons from dudes in Stormtrooper suits

There are a few annual events I adore even though I'll never ever go to any of them: Burning Man, SXSW, TED, and this time of year, Comic-Con. When you're hyper-focused on IT innovation, you ...

July 18, 2011 18 Jul'11

IPad Bluetooth keyboards, iPad’s own keyboard vulnerable to hackers

Were you on vacation and unplugged last week? While you're planning your shopping list for the week, you might want to add an iPad Bluetooth keyboard and a 20-foot touch-screen wall. Here's what ...

July 12, 2011 12 Jul'11

What chief information officers have in common with Kevin Bacon

What does a chief information officer have in common with Kevin Bacon? Mathematics. The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Game has been around for a while. It proves that all of us are more intertwined ...

July 08, 2011 08 Jul'11

Can the new Google social network overtake Facebook?

Facebook and Google have been at war for years. They want your eyes on their sites, and they'll do anything toward that goal. You've undoubtedly heard about the potential new heir to the Facebook ...

June 28, 2011 28 Jun'11

Even the Geek Doctor couldn't save Google Health

My first thought when I heard that Google Health is shutting down is, "what's the Geek Doctor going to do?" My second thought was shock. Dr. John Halamka, aka the "Geek Doctor," has been one of ...

June 24, 2011 24 Jun'11

Vulnerability in Dropbox security leaves user accounts wide open

No bones about it: Dropbox security just took a huge dive in user confidence. This past Sunday, Dropbox user accounts -- all of them -- were open and accessible to the world, no password required. ...

June 16, 2011 16 Jun'11

Does your business know the enterprise can't be run on rogue IT?

The question to Warren Ritchie, CIO at the Volkswagen Group of America, was pretty standard: What was the biggest surprise he faced when he came into the IT world? Ritchie was speaking at the ...

June 16, 2011 16 Jun'11

Public-sector CIOs leading IT transformation

I'm not sure about you, but my first impression of government's use of technology is that they are still working off VAX computers and dumb terminals. But, really, it's quite the contrary. Here are ...

June 13, 2011 13 Jun'11

TrueCrypt and Dropbox go together like peanut butter and chocolate

We've scoured the Web and compiled a crib sheet for the best and most interesting tidbits from around the IT blogosphere last week, including using TrueCrypt and Dropbox for data encryption, the ...

June 07, 2011 07 Jun'11

Outsourcing services need the right mix of commodity and strategy

Discover Card has made a celebrity out of "Peggy," but despite the credit card provider's efforts to humorously discredit outsourcing services in former Soviet Bloc countries, Ukraine is seeing ...

May 24, 2011 24 May'11

Failed promotion for Amazon cloud storage affects consumer confidence

It's one of those things that looks fantastic on paper: Introduce your cloud service to the consumer market by packaging it with a super-cheap, eagerly anticipated superstar's new album. Amazon did ...

May 03, 2011 03 May'11

CIO innovation is about getting ahead of the problems

My colleagues and I in the CIO/IT Strategy Media Group have spent much of the first half of 2011 talking with CIOs about innovation. So much time that I think I might go crazy asking another ...

April 28, 2011 28 Apr'11

PlayStation Network breach is Sony's shameful nadir

Another week, another major hack. It seems these things go in cycles. There was a major breach at email provider Epsilon earlier this month. But the recent attack on the PlayStation Network is ...

April 21, 2011 21 Apr'11

What does it mean that Wal-Mart is buying social media company Kosmix?

When I read the news that Wal-Mart is buying a small software company specializing in social networking, thoughts swirled. How they swirled! Kosmix upsets the Wal-Mart cosmos. All that stuff about ...

April 19, 2011 19 Apr'11

Cisco killed the Flip camera and other surprises

The news last week that Cisco killed the Flip mini-camcorder -- or, as Cisco put it, restructured its consumer products division -- is full of surprises. First, I have to admit, even as a Cisco ...

April 13, 2011 13 Apr'11

In the cloud, even custom apps will be a commodity

I'll make this short because God knows you've read enough about cloud computing and its software variation, SaaS. This concerns the cloud and custom apps, in particular the proprietary apps and IT ...

April 12, 2011 12 Apr'11

What have we learned from the Epsilon security breach?

My wife and I started getting the emails April 4. Best Buy. Our bank. Other e-commerce sites we had shopped. The impact of the Epsilon security breach was far and wide. My first thought was that at ...

April 07, 2011 07 Apr'11

Are CIO leadership skills moot if the business has you pigeonholed?

Are you lacking in CIO leadership skills, or do you lack CIO leadership qualities because the business has boxed you in, pigeonholed you as the IT guy? The question came up at a private dinner for ...

April 05, 2011 05 Apr'11

Are the Mozilla Firefox 4 and IE9 releases wreaking havoc on your old apps?

Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 and Mozilla Firefox 4 dropped within a week of each other, and now that the dust has settled, Internet users are finding that there are pieces of their daily lives ...

April 01, 2011 01 Apr'11

Cloudsourcing and lean methodology tap customer input

Whether your IT organization is thinking about becoming lean or using cloudsourcing techniques, it all boils down to customer input. After all, they're the ones on the front line, with the best ...

March 29, 2011 29 Mar'11

The need for IT innovation leads to aggressive collaboration

IT innovation is what happens when there's no money for new equipment but plenty of fresh ideas emanating from all parts of the business.

March 11, 2011 11 Mar'11

Why aren't more women in executive careers in IT?

Tuesday was International Women's Day. The United Nations' theme for 2011: "Equal access to education, training and science and technology." Last week at the FusionCIO conference in Madison, Wis., ...

March 04, 2011 04 Mar'11

Companies eyeing cloud brokers to manage multiple cloud services

Some IT departments are aggressively adopting "cloud-first" strategies for new deployments. Instead of buying new servers, they're looking at Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS); rather than ...

March 01, 2011 01 Mar'11

What would an Internet kill switch really mean?

The Internet shutdown in Eqypt last month raised questions regarding whether the U.S. would be able to do the same with a so-called Internet kill switch bill. This is not the first time such a bill ...

February 10, 2011 10 Feb'11

Effects of the Egypt Internet shutdown

It's a sign of how dependent our lives have become on the Internet, or more accurately, of "being connected." News of Egypt cutting off Internet and cellular service for five days this week shocked ...

February 08, 2011 08 Feb'11

Software tools can be basis for successful ITIL strategy

The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) can be a useful tool -- for those who have ventured into it. Just 40% of 169 IT managers at midmarket firms surveyed by SearchCIO-Midmarket.com last year ...

February 01, 2011 01 Feb'11

IT innovation is just a matter of time

Innovation is a popular topic among IT professionals and media. It's also one of the more misunderstood concepts. If you ask 10 CIOs what IT innovation means to them or to their companies, you will ...

February 01, 2011 01 Feb'11

IT offshore outsourcing markets, options on the rise, Gartner says

The never-ending quest to cut IT costs is opening up new IT offshoring markets. Here are a look at Gartner's latest assessment and a new index from IT advisory firm TPI Inc.

January 27, 2011 27 Jan'11

Offshore outsourcing: China runs the sun, will it rule the cloud too?

Gartner came out with its annual list of the top 30 countries for offshore outsourcing. Despite my complicated relationship with lists (totally sucked in and deeply skeptical), I've found the ...

January 13, 2011 13 Jan'11

Data center transformation: Evolution or revolution?

As we continue to chronicle the "disappearing" data center, we have to consider the ongoing transformation of the enterprise application. Software as a Service, Web-based applications, cloud ...

January 07, 2011 07 Jan'11

CIO resumes: Passing the eyeball test and the black ink test

Judging character and qualifications is a tough thing. The annual debate over the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame voting is going on, following the announcement of the two newest members, ...

December 23, 2010 23 Dec'10

Post-WikiLeaks computer security measures include hired hackers

Those of you who find the Wikileaks story fascinating, as I do, might enjoy zooming through Red's Query, a fictional piece of work by technology media executive Eric Lundquist. The last quarter of ...

December 22, 2010 22 Dec'10

Spreading cheer and good health through a virtual reality game

We got Kinect. For Christmas and the winter ahead, my husband said. For when the house is empty again and the weather outside is frightful. It will be good for our health, he told me. I do not play ...

December 16, 2010 16 Dec'10

Forget virtual machine management -- go to the cloud

There are still many IT shops that have not virtualized the majority of their servers. Many still haven’t moved virtual machines (VMs) to a production environment yet. In fact, some may sidestep ...

December 15, 2010 15 Dec'10

Can the use of social media skew sales forecasts?

Best Buy uses social media like a pro, or as professionally as a business can, given the newness of the communication mode. The company's Twelpforce service enlists the passion of Best Buy's entire ...

December 10, 2010 10 Dec'10

Budgets, big data and staffing among top CIO concerns

There's good news for CIOs who need to find a way to do more with less: most IT budgets will stay flat or even increase by as much as 10% in 2011, according to a live survey of more than 2,000 ...

December 10, 2010 10 Dec'10

Outsourcing vs. insourcing: The line's not so clear

An important part of a CIO's job is understanding which IT functions are best handled by others and which should be kept in-house. But the answer is not always so clear-cut in the outsourcing vs. ...

December 02, 2010 02 Dec'10

An old data center infrastructure looks new in a coat of green

Thinking about heading out to Gartner Inc.'s 29th annual Data Center Conference in Las Vegas next week, I'm reminded of how much data center infrastructure has changed since the mid-1980s, when ...

December 02, 2010 02 Dec'10

How do you know if your SaaS provider is healthy? Here's the scoop

How do you know if your SaaS provider is a good choice? A session at the recent MIT Sloan CFO Summit provided some insight that might prove useful the next time you're vetting a SaaS provider. The ...

November 30, 2010 30 Nov'10

Social bots by 2015, and other technology predictions from Gartner

Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are behind us. Time to bring out the 2011 technology predictions. Hot off the presses from the Gartner research files are the consultancy's top ...

November 10, 2010 10 Nov'10

In the absence of spreadsheet management, horror lurks

Is the spreadsheet dead? Has the cockroach been eradicated? A half-billion people use Excel. For a story this week on spreadsheet management, I not only learned that the spreadsheet is alive and ...

November 03, 2010 03 Nov'10

The eyes have it: CIOs need video content management -- now!

I am entertained by a good video as much as anyone, I dare say, especially those made by a close relative in the science field, and any number of YouTube hits as well (for example, Hahaha and David ...

October 29, 2010 29 Oct'10

Why some IT executives are gung ho about cloud computing technology

If the turnout at the recent Society for Information Management (SIM) meeting in Boston is any indication, IT executives are seriously interested in cloud computing technology. And although ...

October 28, 2010 28 Oct'10

Agile adoption basics, and basic mistakes

I came across a helpful post on the Edge of Chaos/Agile development blog on the 10 most common mistakes for agile adoption. No. 1: Don’t start with a tool. Choosing a tool will only slow down agile ...

October 28, 2010 28 Oct'10

Business intelligence technology 3.0 is all about control, but whose?

In search of information for a story on business intelligence technology 2.0, I was informed politely by the head of the BI practice of a global IT provider that I was at least six years behind the ...

October 12, 2010 12 Oct'10

Mobile workforce will soon demand iPad-type tablets

If ever there was a no-brainer reason to get an iPad, or some kind of equivalent thin tablet computer that will be coming soon from HP or Dell, it's as a journalist covering a remote assignment. ...

October 05, 2010 05 Oct'10

Social media may not be a revolution, but it's in your enterprise

The social media multiverse is all a Twitter about the fact that one of today's most popular intellectuals has written an article saying that the revolution will not be tweeted. You should read his ...

September 30, 2010 30 Sep'10

Managing expectations for DR in a virtual server environment

We've been looking at evolving technology strategies around disaster recovery in a virtual server environment this week at SearchCIO.com, but some of the best advice I heard came down to managing ...

September 16, 2010 16 Sep'10

Supporting cloud services is a quandary for IT

A CIO was recently approached by a business line manager about a problem with a cloud service. The manager asked if the CIO could help resolve the issue, and the CIO gave him a flat-out “No.” It is ...

September 09, 2010 09 Sep'10

Women in IT band together at VMworld 2010

Navigating the crowded halls of VMworld 2010 in San Francisco last week, I couldn't help feeling drawn to the signage developed for this year's event: "Virtual Clouds, Actual Roads. " The backdrop ...

September 07, 2010 07 Sep'10

Improving business services management, one vehicle at a time

It's funny the places where you can gain some insight about business services management. Last week, I spent two hours waiting at my local Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles to exchange a ...

September 01, 2010 01 Sep'10

VMware luminaries say virtualized environments lead to IT as a Service

Hall D in San Francisco's Moscone Center was an electric mecca this week, as tens of thousands of IT professionals gathered to hear VMware Inc. luminaries discuss the future of IT as a Service at ...

August 25, 2010 25 Aug'10

WikiLeaks: When IT security threats are leakers, not hackers

Last month's release of the incendiary Afghan War Diary by WikiLeaks raised a lot of national security questions, not the least of which is how a large, complex enterprise anticipates the human ...

August 24, 2010 24 Aug'10

Trade promotion management: A missing opportunity?

If you read Linda Tucci's recent story on the efforts of Tasty Baking Co. to find a workable solution for trade promotion management, you may have been struck, as I was, about why TPM can be such a ...

August 20, 2010 20 Aug'10

The cloud hype cycle will take the industry for a ride

If you think cloud computing is coming on strong, well, you ain't seen nothing yet. Analysts at Gartner Inc. predict that worldwide revenue from cloud services will balloon from $58.6 billion in ...

August 13, 2010 13 Aug'10

The feds' identity ecosystem will include national identity cards

The U.S. government is increasing its efforts to identify, authenticate and authorize people online. This month it's releasing a draft of a Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace proposal ...

August 11, 2010 11 Aug'10

Top five free Microsoft downloads

Every once in a while I like to check out what Microsoft admins are downloading these days. I sometimes do a search on Google, but to get a feel for the work being done in Microsoft shops, I always ...

August 10, 2010 10 Aug'10

The end of online anonymity, part 2

Google CEO Eric Schmidt's statement last week about the end of online anonymity recalls similar words by one of his former colleagues, Scott McNealy of Sun, more than a decade ago. McNealy caused a ...

August 05, 2010 05 Aug'10

Agile best practices applied to business problems

In the past few years, Ross Pettit, client principal at Chicago-based ThoughtWorks Inc., has seen a shift in client requests. The agile software development consulting firm’s projects are still ...

July 30, 2010 30 Jul'10

Catalyst Conference: Is the new BI about less automation -- or more?

I'm here on the business intelligence track at the Burton Group's Catalyst Conference, trying to sort out the old BI from the new. As you might expect, there is a lot of talk about predictive ...

July 22, 2010 22 Jul'10

Readers respond to practice and philosophy of IT chargeback

My thanks go out to readers who were charged up enough to write about the IT chargeback series on SearchCIO.com. Whether you do showback, partial chargeback or chargeback for a profit; charge ...

July 22, 2010 22 Jul'10

Chief data officers: Bringing data management strategy to the C-suite

John Bottega admits he's a bit of a clotheshorse. The guy likes a quality suit. Actually, he is a connoisseur of fine suits, their fit, their style, their durability. The sleeve on a quality suit, ...

July 16, 2010 16 Jul'10

Chargeback process: An old model heralds changes in IT

The old chargeback process, revived by cloud computing, could have major ramifications for IT organizations as they revamp to become centralized service providers, experts say. Traditional ...

July 15, 2010 15 Jul'10

Does IT chargeback pave the way to outsourcing?

If your organization is talking about moving to an IT chargeback or a supply and demand model for IT, could that be its first step on the road to outsourcing? That was an interesting sidelight ...

July 14, 2010 14 Jul'10

IT consolidation for business innovation

I’ve been touching base with IT folks and analysts lately to get a feel for the projects people are working on these days, and the phrases that keep coming up are IT consolidation, modernization ...

July 09, 2010 09 Jul'10

IT chargeback: A political hot potato is tossed up by cloud computing

A question has been nagging me since I attended Cloud Expo in New York: What metrics can IT departments use to charge back business units for cloud services? Measured service is fundamental to the ...

June 18, 2010 18 Jun'10

Self-service technology transforms universities into 'schools of one'

IT executives who are grappling with social media and self-service technology will sympathize with their counterparts in higher education. The technology sophistication of current university ...

June 17, 2010 17 Jun'10

New England GiveCamp: One NERD and multiple IT project success stories

A lot of projects fail. If business requirements aren't clear or gathered effectively, or if the scope of the project is inaccurate, failure happens. But this past weekend, at New England GiveCamp ...

June 10, 2010 10 Jun'10

When it comes to an agile model, failure is an option

It’s OK to fail when taking an agile approach to a business service or software development project, but if you fail, fail fast. As one expert explained to me, if you don’t fail, you don’t really ...

May 27, 2010 27 May'10

BP's risk management strategy put planet in peril

A story in this morning's New York Times on BP's risk management strategy will no doubt send chills down the spine of many a corporate risk and compliance officer. The story reports on an internal ...

May 25, 2010 25 May'10

The discovery phase of private clouds

A year ago, when I brought up private clouds to IT executives, many were flat out not interested. Flash forward a year, and their stance has changed. Many IT executives are entering boot camps ...

May 21, 2010 21 May'10

Idea management software: The future is now

Idea management software sounds so futuristic, it makes me think of the movie Minority Report. In fact, ideation management is in the here and now. As SearchCIO.com News Director Christina Torode ...

May 21, 2010 21 May'10

Mars and Venus on the future of IT

It could be I'm overly sensitive to gender issues among the academic scientific elite, having moved to Cambridge, Mass., about the time then-Harvard President Larry Summers made his unfortunate ...

May 19, 2010 19 May'10

Technology job openings surge, headhunters are on the prowl

A report on technology job openings reinforces evidence that the recession is receding. Do you know where your IT staff is headed? It could be out the door. This month's report from Dice Inc., the ...

May 03, 2010 03 May'10

CIO weekly wrap-up: The future of Flash, Sarah Palin hacker convicted

I'm having a slightly cranky Monday morning. The Greater Boston area is on a "boil water" order due to a catastrophic water main break -- which is most immediately affecting me in that there is no ...

April 29, 2010 29 Apr'10

IT hiring: The drama behind the statistics

Well, this sounds like a positive sign of economy -- and IT -- recovery. We've written recently about what CEOs look for in the CIO role, and now The Boston Globe is reporting that IT hiring is on ...

April 16, 2010 16 Apr'10

CIO careers: Seeking legal experts

Of all the conversations I had with attendees this week at the Gartner Business Intelligence Summit in Las Vegas, it was actually one with Gartner analyst Debra Logan about CIO careers that ...