Stories by Tom Sullivan

Where today's datacenters have gone wrong

Today's datacenters are downright cramped, yet forced to continue absorbing more technologies and tapping into the latest trends, all while maximizing efficiency and reducing costs. The current recession makes now the time to glance back for a historical perspective to better understand how to not only survive in this different world but also to best prepare for the future.

McAfee builds SaaS arm

McAfee on Monday announced that it has rolled its SaaS security offerings into a new business unit.

IBM expands SaaS ecosystem

IBM on Friday detailed a new ISV partnership, a move which, on the heels of cloud-related agreements penned last week with several universities, advances the company's cloud and SaaS realm.

Gartner's 5 predictions for BI in 2009 and beyond

Through 2012 more than 35 percent of the largest 5,000 companies will regularly fail to make insightful decisions about significant changes in their business and markets, according to analyst house Gartner.

HP adds orchestration, recovery to Adaptive Infrastructure

Hewlett-Packard on Thursday added tools for orchestration and recovery to its Adaptive Infrastructure portfolio. And, as with most enterprise-class technology announcements these days, HP said that the new tools promise IT cost-savings and reduced risks.

Google unwraps Apps partner program

Google on Wednesday detailed a new program under which resellers can now offer Google Apps to businesses -- effectively meaning that companies considering the alternative to Microsoft Office don't have to go it alone. But the search giant has yet to prove its strength in supporting a partner ecosystem that could bring enterprises much needed assurances.

IBM garners most patents -- again

IBM on Wednesday announced that it has become the first company to earn more than 4000 patents in a single year, and also said it will ratchet up the number of technical innovations it publishes instead of seeking patent protection.

Five top spending priorities for hard times

No company is immune from the economy's ebb and flow. So it's no surprise that, in the face of a fearsome downturn, IT shops are scrambling to figure out where they should cut.

Looking for job security? Try Cobol

A career as a Cobol programmer might not be as sexy as slinging Java code or scripting in Ruby, but if you buckle down and learn hoary old Cobol, you could land one of the safest, most secure jobs in IT.

Will the downturn accelerate cloud computing?

Facing uncertain economic times, enterprises may be more likely to turn to cloud computing services -- such as SaaS (software as a service), Amazon-style utility computing, and managed service providers -- for the lower up-front costs, the faster time to market, and the ability to add capabilities quickly without investing in new hardware.

Invite those unsanctioned applications in!

It's a classic case of mine vs. yours: Users are downloading a crop of new and often unsanctioned programs onto their PCs, bypassing IT's careful management discipline.

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