Articles by

Already facing tens of millions of dollars in costs associated with replacing recalled laptop batteries for several major PC makers, Sony now faces the prospect that some of these companies will try to recoup additional damages, such as compensation for lost business Toshiba said Monday it is currently studying the damage its recall of Sony's lithi...

There are so many things that I could write about Dreamforce that I have had to quickly conclude that it won't all fit into one column, and I will be writing about it for some time to come. I bet I am not alone. Here are some ideas that I thought were important, however The big announcement was Apex, Salesforce.com's programming language that wil...

Microsoft on Friday changed its stance on a Vista security feature that has ruffled the feathers of antivirus vendor powerhouses in recent weeks Symantec and McAfee cried foul when they learned that the software giant was planning to block security software vendors' access to Vista's kernel, which developers need in order to build effective, compat...

Several computer security companies are bolstering their efforts to remain viable players with enterprise computer users and consumers alike asMicrosoft loosens control over security access in its next-generation operating system, Vista Computer security firm McAfee announced on Monday a security risk management strategy for its customers using cur...

Every e-mail, ad and search engine marketing placement entices a click by making a promise. Most of the time that promise is immediately broken and the brand behind it is tarnished Marketers work very hard at enticing that first response. We treat the click as the objective and consider the battle won as soon as that first action takes place. Littl...

Growth in the enterprise resource planning market may have paused during the 2001-2002 recession, but it is now back to a steady pace, according to a new AMR Research report The consulting firm found that total ERP market revenue grew to more than US$25 billion in 2005due to strong customer demand, as well as a number of acquisitions of smaller nic...

Massachusetts' embrace of open technology, open standards and open source software was simply routine strategic planning, the way Tim Vaverchack tells it. However, the state's stance to strongly consider alternatives to proprietary solutions -- such as the Open Document Format -- has fueled one of the biggest technology firestorms in government IT history...

Last week's happenings foreshadowed potential changes in the wind. With the stock option backdating scandal widening, it appears that Apple CEO Steve Jobs may have been caught in the net Meanwhile, with the realization that gaming has been driving a lot of the PC industry, and some powerful recent acquisitions by Hewlett-Packard, which bought Voodo...

It's a sad fact of life for today's information-driven organizations that the nature of security threats is continuously shifting and evolving. Intrusion mechanisms such as worms, Trojans and rootkit exploits continually evolve into more-developed forms, and wax and wane in terms of number and frequency of attacks Zero-day vulnerability attacks and...

Open source software is a known resource among government IT pros, who are continually asked to do more with less, but beyond the flexibility and freedom from licensing fees, those who know how to leverage IT to its fullest are also using the collaboration aspect of open source software to succeed Northwest transportation giant Tri-Met, for example...

Newly passed gaming laws have spurred an exodus of UK-based Internet companies from the lucrative United States market, with major sites selling off or shutting down their operations Sportingbet said it agreed to sell its U.S. operations to Jazette Enterprises, an Antigua-based corporation, for US$1. The sale enables Sportingbet to write off some $...

Backing off earlier suggestions that antitrust concerns in the European Union could delay the launch of its next-generation Windows platform, Microsoft said Friday it would launch Windows Vista in Europe on schedule Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer personally told EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes late Thursday that Microsoft planned to launch th...

Palm took the wraps off its first entry-level smartphone at the DigitalLife trade show in New York on Thursday The Treo 680's design aims to broaden the appeal of feature-rich smartphones beyond business clients to attract everyday users who like to listen to music, take pictures and surf the Web. The new Treo is Palm's fourth new product launch th...

Back in November of 2005, I wrote an article for the E-Commerce Times entitled: Hedge Funds: Investor Beware. Before I talk about the most recent hedge fund disaster, the loss by Amaranth Advisors of over US$6 billion and the ramifications thereof, permit me to crow a little In my previous article I said the following about why I am so critical of ...

It wasn't so long ago that technological or economic reasons -- or both -- stood in the way of many people who aspired to launch a retail business online. That's changed drastically in a short span of time. Professional quality e-commerce hosting services, along with a growing range of easy-to-use software tools, have come within the reach of even those with modest budgets...

Just as dual-core processor technology is making its way into mainstream enterprise IT environments, AMD, Intel and Sun Microsystems are pushing for even more processor cores. Quad-core processing is on the way The market is ready for this cutting-edge technology, though, thanks to IT architectures, servers and applications that are already paralle...

In the recent movie "Thank You for Smoking," a tobacco lobbyist comes under fire for working to protect people's right to smoke. A similar movie could be made about gambling and the villain would be Representative Bob Goodlatte The Virginia Republican has been fighting to enact legislation on Internet gambling for some time, and he can now finally ...

Open source may be experiencing something of a slow uptake in government offices lately because the traditional "request for proposal" (RFP) process -- required and used by governments when spending tax dollars on software and other technology resources -- often excludes open source options Even worse, governments are typically using software and s...

Firefox continued to gain ground on Internet Explorer in September, according to the latest browser usage statistics from Net Applications. What's more, the firm reports increasing browser fragmentation among users Internet Explorer has been the dominant Web browser for many years -- and remains king of the hill. However, Microsoft's browser has be...

Intel is facing a sweeping patent infringement suit from a far-smaller competitor. Transmeta is alleging that the chip giant infringed on 10 of its patents Transmeta claims Intel knowingly infringed on technology protected by U.S. patents covering things such as computer architecture and power efficiency. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company clai...