Articles by

Dreamforce's two-and-a-half hour keynote on Wednesday featured plenty of technology talk -- the ability to add individual customers to Chatter, the use of HTML5 to create native-like mobile CRM applications, a scheme to allow customers to store some sensitive data in an on-premises location rather than within Salesforce's data centers, and more. And technology is neat -- don't get me wrong. The art and science of managing customer relationships would be lost without it...

Travel tools for the road include some of the killer apps that have driven the smartphone market, like mapping. However, the ball and chain is the cost of getting that data outside of your home market. For example, U.S. carrier Sprint currently charges a whopping US$19.45 per megabyte to use its GSM data roaming agreements in Europe. At that price...

Salesforce.com kicked off its 9th Dreamforce conference with a slew of new features, services and products, as well as an offering that represents a surprising shift for the cloud-evangelizing company: the ability to store data on premises for security-conscious companies. Although lost somewhat amid the higher sex-appeal social and Chatter-relate...

The U.S. Department of Justice has sued to block AT&T's proposed US$39 billion takeover of T-Mobile. The civil antitrust lawsuit that Justice filed in Washington's federal court on Wednesday says the deal would substantially diminish competition in the wireless market. AT&T shares fell 5.5 percent after the news broke.

The U.S. Department of Justice has sued to block AT&T's proposed US$39 billion takeover of T-Mobile. The civil antitrust lawsuit that Justice filed in Washington's federal court on Wednesday says the deal would substantially diminish competition in the wireless market. AT&T shares fell 5.5 percent after the news broke.

Samsung Telecommunications America has announced it will launch its latest Android smartphone, the Galaxy S II, on AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile in the U.S. this fall ...

HP has opted to continue producing its TouchPad tablet device, at least temporarily, in response to an explosion of demand among consumers. That demand was likely spurred by the drastic drop in price the tablet underwent earlier this month -- just after HP announced that it was discontinuing the TouchPad. The device, which sold for US$500 when it debuted a few weeks ago, dropped to $99 at some retailers...

Thanks to a variety of mobile payment systems, buying and selling goods and services has never been easier. Increasingly, mobile devices are becoming both credit-card readers and stand-ins for the cards themselves It might not mean the end of cash just yet, but we're moving in that direction....

Esther Dyson, the Great Dame of Silicon Valley, at times matriarch to Bill Gates and many other lads on the innovation circuit, wrote a harsh column Aug. 26 about ICANN's gTLD system, titled "What's in a Domain Name?" I like and respect Esther, especially for her technical background -- we have shared the podium. However, as this topic deals with ...

There was brisk business in associated user group meetings in San Francisco before Dreamforce. For some reason, I don't understand why Dreamforce starts in the middle of the week this year, which is fortunate for two reasons: Hurricane Irene clobbered travel operations up and down the East Coast over the weekend, and given the number of users coming from the east, it was fortunate. Many people were able to reschedule flights, though some inevitably missed being at Dreamforce this year...

Linux users are blessed with a collection of file encryption tools. But chances are, whatever application you use for that task lacks the efficiency, speed and functionality of TrueCrypt....

Have Apps, Will Travel - Part 1 No matter how many virtual meeting applications spring up and how popular they may be, travel is still a bit part of corporate life. Fortunately, mobile apps have made the task more tolerable, more efficient and considerably more pleasant. That is, of course, if you're using the best apps for the trip you're planning...

When Google settled with the U.S. Department of Justice for US$500 million over accusations that it allowed Canadian pharmaceutical companies to illegally place ads on its network, it may have thought its troubles with this issue were over. It was wrong A shareholder has filed suit against the company, alleging Google breached its fiduciary duty by...

Speculation about what features Windows 8 will include is sizzling as Microsoft continues to remain tight-lipped about details of the new operating system However, Redmond has talked to some extent about the upcoming OS' handling of Explorer, the Windows file management system....

Barnes & Noble released its first-quarter earnings report on Tuesday, revealing that sales of its Nook e-reader and e-books have been helping to offset the company's sinking physical book sales. ...

Barnes & Noble released its first-quarter earnings report on Tuesday, revealing that sales of its Nook e-reader and e-books have been helping to offset the company's sinking physical book sales. ...

The latest innovations in SEO are definitely social signals and how they impact search results. We are seeing a shift in the authority scores that Google is weighing. It is not based solely on in-bound links and page content, but also on the amount of social sharing and social signals that you actually see. Social signals encompass trending topics in Twitter and Facebook and how often those links are shared.

A major initiative to improve federal information technology management, including IT procurement, got a boost recently, even though the person behind the reform had left federal service. Just days after taking over as federal chief information officer, Steven VanRoekel posted a blog supporting a new role for federal agency CIOs. The bolstering of...

Samsung Electronics is launching a free mobile communications service called "ChatON." It works on several smartphone and feature phone platforms -- but apparently not Windows Phone -- and offers a Web client for tablets, desktop and notebook computers as well. The service will let users text each other, chat in groups, share video, or create and ...

If you thought the hacks by Anonymous and AntiSec were bad, boy, are you in for a revelation This past week brings news that the Apache Web server -- the one that powers the majority of the Internet and most websites -- has a vulnerability that can be exploited with relatively little effort....