Articles by

"Brought to you by ..." Ahhh, the golden age of advertising. The ads themselves were social markers, drivers of our conversation, definers of what was -- and was not -- cool. We took them at face value, we obeyed their siren songs, and we sampled, and we bought, and we sang the jingles....

What exactly is cloud computing? The question just doesn't go away, and as the year starts, SugarCRM has just released a white paper -- "The Sugar Open Cloud" -- offering its definition and its argument for why its vision is superior. I am not sure about either Full disclosure: I like SugarCRM and have a lot of respect for what they are trying to...

Few, if any, photo viewing apps on any platform provide a perfectphoto management experience. However, F-Spot Photo Management for Gnomegives Linux users a fairly complete set of photo tools F-Spot ranks among the most well-known photo appsfor Linux. In many ways it is similar to Google's repackaged PicasaPhoto Organizer and the popular GIMPphoto p...

System administrators are well aware of the pain associated with maintenance windows. This effort is usually taking place off-hours and requires challenging coordination between different activities and often different departmental personnel. ...

Fresh off the introduction of its Nexus One smartphone, hailed by some tech analysts as the first real iPhone killer candidate, Google has debuted mockups of a possible tablet device running its yet-to-be released open source Chrome operating system ...

A brief stroll through the Google Solutions Marketplace shows you that the search giant is already working and playing well with others when it comes to the business of specialized business software. Need something to give your Google Calendar a little sharing and productivity boost? What about enhancements to Google Spreadsheets? An electronic signature add-on for Google Apps?...

1. Miniaturization Every business process will go through intense compression and digitalization, so when it comes out on the other side of the tunnel, it will have already considerably reduced its operational costs. This will enable the process to function effectively, more powerfully, and be highly replicatable, with a lower cost structure, like...

During a five hour event at its Redwood Shores corporate headquarters, Oracle executives, including CEO Larry Ellison and Co-Presidents Safra Catz and Charles Phillips, applauded the completion of Oracle's purchase of Sun Microsystems and outlined their strategy for the new acquisition for a media and analyst audience. Among the details:...

Practically every business has a dirty little secret: It's called customer attrition. Rarely can a company claim someone as a customer for life. There will always be pressure from the competition -- and as a result, there will always be customer attrition. Certainly, businesses do everything they can to retain their current base, but retention isn...

The iPhone propelled the smartphone onto the front lines of cross-platform competition, and now Apple's new iPad has the potential to do the same for the new category of tablet devices Positioned somewhere between the smartphone and the laptop, the new tablet is billed as "the best way to experience the Web, email, photos and videos."

I was idly scanning a press release in my inbox the other day stating that the National Academy of Sciences planned to honor 17 individuals in 2010 for their "extraordinary scientific achievements in the areas of biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy and psychology." Five of the recipients were women. I remembered having read about Marie Curie an...

After a brief protest late last week, Amazon now says it will give in and sell e-books from Macmillan at the higher prices the publisher has requested "Macmillan, one of the 'big six' publishers, has clearly communicated to us that, regardless of our viewpoint, they are committed to switching to an agency model and charging (US)$12.99 to $14.99 for...

Intel and Micron have jointly announced what may be the world'ssmallest, densest NAND flash memory device yet ...

Following a breach of its computer systems a year ago, Heartland Payment Systems, one of the five largest payment card processors in the United States, came under considerable pressure to strengthen its IT security, and it's been embroiled in several lawsuits because of the breach. In January 2009, hundreds of thousands of business owners were stu...

Following a month of testing at no cost to customers, Microsoft's Windows Azure platform will become a paid service on Monday. The Azure platform is a set of cloud computing services that can be used together or independently on a pay-per-use basis. Originally unveiled in October 2008, the service has been free for customers during the month of Ja...

Consider the advantages of joining an airline frequent flier program (FFP): The more you travel, the more points you earn. On the other hand, the more you travel, the more likely your baggage will be lost. Or the airline will still charge a fee for converting frequent flier points into a "free" extra trip. Or the airline will change its policy and impose an expiration date for using your thousands of hard-earned mileage points...

The technology and consumer electronics markets are awash with companies that seem to be barely meeting expectations or are, like Sony, Sun and Yahoo, on and off death watch. They aren't alone; the relatively new Obama administration seems to also be failing, and the latest State of the Union address wasn't particularly inspirational. Apple jus...

PC users purchased record numbers of Windows licenses in the last three months of 2009, driving big gains for Microsoft over the company's second fiscal quarter, the first quarter in which the company's Windows 7 OS was on retail shelves For its quarter ended Dec. 31, Microsoft reported net income of US$6.66 billion, or 74 cents per share, from $4....

In this business climate, the road to striking a venture capital deal is difficult for both funder and fundee. Small startups with big ideas obviously have a harder time finding VC firms willing to take a chance on them, but those VC firms themselves are under added pressure to make the correct decisions regarding where to put their limited resources...

In this business climate, the road to striking a venture capital deal is difficult for both funder and fundee. Small startups with big ideas obviously have a harder time finding VC firms willing to take a chance on them, but those VC firms themselves are under added pressure to make the correct decisions regarding where to put their limited resources...