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Global IT spending will reach US$3.8 trillion this year, Gartner predicted this week, representing a 3.1 percent increase over spending in 2013, which clocked in at $3.7 trillion The rate of growth between 2012 and 2013, by contrast, was a negligible 0.4 percent....

I'd like to say it's going to be a good year in CRM, and I firmly believe it, though I can't offer a single, all-encompassing reason for my optimism. There are plenty of small things that begin to add up, however -- in an earlier time, the metaphor might have been "straws in the wind." So what are they? First, the economy is looking better -- but t...

Managing a household's expenses isn't the sexiest task in our lives. Nevertheless, it has to be done -- so why not add a dash of fun to it? That's what a program by Raj Kumar Shaw of iLifeTouch does for the chore. Called simply "Daily Expenses," the software -- available from the Mac App Store for US$19.99 -- offers a streamlined and colorful way t...

Traditional water heating equipment uses fuel as an energy source to heat a rod-like element in the water tank. The element then warms the water If you've ever reheated a hot beverage by placing it in the microwave, you'll have an idea as to the alternatives. Microwave ovens heat liquids by moving molecules so that the molecules hit each other. Thi...

Devices ranging from the sublime to the strange are debuting this week at International CES 2014 Products unveiled at the show suggest growing trends toward wearable health-tracking products and increased human-gadget interaction. There's a bed, for example, that tells owners how they slept the previous night and what they can do to sleep better in...

Apple's month-to-month smartphone sales appear healthy, according to data covering September to November 2013, released Tuesday by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. However, the bigger picture is less encouraging. Year-over-year figures indicate Apple is at best treading water, with its share having declined in most major markets. Apple now claims 69.1 p...

Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it will acquire Parature, which provides customer engagement solutions as a service Parature's technology will add self-service, support ticketing and other capabilities to Microsoft Dynamics....

CEO Brian Krzanich laid out the road map for Intel's future in his first Consumer Electronics Show keynote as CEO Krzanich, who took over the top job last May, focused on wearable technology -- including some products designed internally -- as well as dual operating system tech and Intel's McAfee security software.

If you're inclined to make resolutions this time of year and you're concerned about your online and offline security, here are some suggestions that can keep you safer in the days ahead At the top of the list: You should vow to change the passwords to your important accounts on a frequent basis....

China will temporarily lift a sales ban on foreign videogame consoles, according to China's State Council, reversing a 14-year prohibition Companies like Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo -- which long have salivated over the heretofore obstructed gold mine of Chinese videogamedom -- will be allowed to make game consoles in Shanghai's free trade zone an...

Cloud service users are becoming more vocal about what they want from cloud providers and how they want to pay for it -- and cloud providers may be listening. Cloud firms are beginning to offer more flexible options and are gradually shifting to utility-style pricing models There is no single factor pushing the movement toward these changes. Howeve...

CRM has gained significant attention and adoption among businesses eager to enhance their processes for building and maintaining customer relationships, thanks to industry visionaries such as Salesforce, Oracle and Microsoft. The central features of CRM include keeping track of customers' information and determining their readiness to buy; however, there's a major element of effective sales strategy that CRM systems neglect to address: collaboration.

Using Hadoop running YARN to manage large clusters for Big Data analysis may soon become easier with a renamed open source project accepted by the Apache Foundation The Apache Foundation accepted the open source project Twill, named "Weave" while hosted on Github, after foundation members began voting for its inclusion on Nov. 8. Bringing the Twill...

Amadeus, the world's largest travel reservation and ticketing system, handling bookings for 95 percent of flights worldwide, uses a variety of NoSQL databases to deal with the massive amounts of data that it handles Amadeus enables 3.7 million bookings on more than 700 airlines, 110,000 hotel properties, and 30 rental car agencies each day....

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em That seems to be what Canon is saying with its announcement Monday of a new PowerShot camera model, the N100, which includes several features popular on smartphones....

LG Electronics has revived the webOS operating system for its latest line of smart TVs, the company announced on Monday In fact, LG will use webOS on more than 70 percent of its smart TV lineup this year, the company said....

In partnership with Nvidia and several automakers, Google on Monday announced the creation of the Open Automotive Alliance, an effort designed to further its push into the automobile industry Audi, General Motors, Honda and Hyundai are among the effort's partners on the automotive side.

Certain advertisements on Yahoo's European website may have helped infect thousands of computers with malware, according to Yahoo A Dutch computer security firm, Fox-IT, outed Yahoo last Friday, penning a blog post claiming that attackers had used ads.yahoo.com to insert malicious ads....

There was no end to the enterprise interest in mobile CRM in 2013. From apps to innovative text marketing campaigns to self-service tablet applications for B2B industries, companies were gleefully trying out new pilots and experimenting with new technologies Why? Simply this: Computing has reached an inflection point. Desktops are just one vehicle ...

As many of you know, I've been executing on a long-term dream of first creating a vacation home, then retiring in Belize I've been putting some rigor into the effort to make sure the perception of the dream doesn't outpace reality. I've often been brought in on projects (like Zune) that should have been shut down early, largely because executive s...