A venerable New Year's tradition in the tech world entails trotting out year-old predictions by analyst shops and laughing at their off-base prognostications. But here's a surprise: The two biggest analyst firms still standing -- Gartner and IDC -- did a pretty good job a year ago forecasting the shape of IT in 2009, as did the smaller Forrester Research and 451 Group.
What exec wouldn't love to have an army of unpaid workers cranking out improvements to their product on the off chance that they may make some money -- or get a little glory? Steve Jobs, of course. But despite Apple's stand, independent developers are poring over the beta of iPhone 3.0, speculating about the new hardware and getting ready to add useful (and sometimes just playful) hacks.
Put three geeks in a room and it won't take long to start an argument. Well, analyst Dennis Byron, veteran open source exec Stuart Cohen, and ex-Microsoft developer Keith Curtis weren't exactly in the same room, but all three have provocative opinions about the future of software in general and of open source in particular.
It's no surprise that Microsoft has its eye on the cloud. Cloud computing, that is.
You might hate Wall Street -- and who doesn't this week, but if you work in IT you owe the Street a vote of thanks because the fat cats in financial services have been a major driver of technological innovation.
Managing data isn't as glamorous as many of the glitzy Web 2.0 apps on display at the Demo Fall 2008 conference in San Diego, but it's what keeps businesses running. Enterprise applications to speed databases, manage unstructured data, and handle BI queries on a massive scale made their debut this week, and at first blush they look positive. Of course, all will have to stand the rigor of real-world use and testing.
It isn't something you'll see on a server rack, but a product from a fabless silicon design outfit could help you cut down on air conditioning costs at work or home and help save energy. What's more, Microstaq's Silicon Expansion Valve (SEV) illustrates innovative thinking, and after all, isn't that what the Demo show is all about?
Samir Mehta doesn't look much like a 15-year-old Chinese gymnast, but in many ways, the 41-year-old serial entrepreneur is just as nimble. You may have heard of him a few years ago when he sold 4th Pass, developers of a Java-based wireless platform, to Motorola for US$20 million. And he's in the news again, this time with a startup called Keetli whose products are designed to help consumers manage high-definition video.
I'm always happy to see competitive products reach the market, particularly one that might give Microsoft a run for its money.
It's hardly news these days when RHEL or Suse Linux boots Windows or Unix off a server. And we know that commercial software vendors are paying plenty of attention to commercial open source.
Pity the poor road warrior who tried to find his data on The Linkup, only to get this message when he logged in: "Unfortunately The Linkup service is no longer available. Please visit box.net for your storage needs." What's worse, the sales guy was on an extended trip through North and South America. That's a real story, told by one Jacob Sherman, "I just want my data," he said.
With more and more companies jumping into the cloud computing fray, this week's joint announcement by Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Yahoo seems like a yawner. But it isn't.
During its year of jousting with Microsoft, Google learned a lot from the software giant. Too bad it picked up Redmond's bad behaviors -- behaviors that are bad for both IT and the public at large.
Here's an irony: With XP's expiration date now 10 days past, you'd think Microsoft could take a deep breath, wipe the sweat off its brow, and enjoy some relative peace and quiet. Wrong. The software giant launched its Vista Compatibility Center this week -- and promptly fell on its face when the site was down for a whole day.
A good CRM package does you no good if employees aren't willing to use it. Case in point: IMA Financial Group, a medium-sized financial services company based in the US. IMA had installed a commercial customer relationship management system that "was flexible and configurable and attractive on the front end," says business processes manager Jennifer Hallam.