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"Not to beat about the bush, but the budgeting process at most companies has to be the most ineffective practice in management. It sucks the energy, time, fun and big dreams out of an organization. In fact, when companies win, in most cases it is despite their budgets, not because of them." These are the words of Jack Welch, the former General E...

Wikitude is a location-based information application for Android by Mobilizy. It is available free on the Android Market.Wikitude was a top-50 finalist in the Android Developer Challenge, and like ShopSavvy, it is a good illustration of what's possible with the mashing together of the G1's capabilities. In this case, Wikitude uses the GPS for loca...

Ten years ago, the "smart home" was all the rage. Almost every company in our market had a concept center or display house that showed the functionality of the digital home I remember a visit to GTE's (prior to them becoming Verizon) offices in the Dallas area, where they had a multiroom digital home display that showed a variety of advanced commun...

Poorly secured corporate Web sites are becoming a top cybersecurity threat as companies are increasingly putting their own clients at risk, according to the latest IBM X-Force Trend and Risk Report, released on Monday This growing online threat to consumers is the result of two trends:...

Anyone using Google between 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. EST on Saturday saw an interesting message pop up alongside nearly all their search results: "This site may harm your computer." Users may indeed know that Web sites sometimes harbor suspicious computer code that can dump spyware or worse on their computers, and that Google will raise a red flag for its customers when it finds such a Web site in search results...

Global sales of semiconductors dropped by 2.8 percent in 2008, according to a sales report released Monday by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). It is the first decline in worldwide sales since 2001, the organization said Total sales for 2008 were US$248.6 billion, down from $255.6 billion in 2007. The SIA attributes the slowdown in sale...

In a broad strategy change, Microsoft released its much-awaited beta version of its next operating system (OS), Windows 7, the second week of January. The software giant eliminated the usual restrictions surrounding its OS betas by making it available to anyone who wants to call him or herself a beta tester. Perhaps the idea was to jump-start a stampede of interest away from the widely criticized Windows Vista OS, which has failed to convince some potential users to upgrade from its predecessor, Windows XP...

Thomas Friedman, in his 2005 book, The World is Flat, introduced a concept he calls "triple convergence." Three key factors, he says, help businesses take advantage of the new technologies available: Increased connectivity and collaboration, increased capabilities in a single device, and process and workflow changes. Industries do not, he suggests, see progress in their productivity until all three of these factors "converge" -- until all are being used seamlessly in the daily work of the business...

Chris Formant, president of Avaya Global Services, has been on the job since March 2008. It is no small irony that one year ago he was tasked with the assignment of strengthening the services group's financial and operating performance -- a significant undertaking, given that the services division touches upon more than half of Avaya's revenue and workforce.

We actually are seeing a large number of turnarounds going on in the industry, and all are overshadowed by President Obama's effort to turn around the country. Last week's vote on the stimulus package would indicate things aren't going well for Obama because, while it passed, all Republicans voted against it -- but it showcases the exact kind of problem Howard Stringer is having at Sony...

When large businesses need to change fast, the IT systems need to do more than keep up with change -- they need to manage, define and secure it. IT repositories are now effectively orchestrating multiple enterprise systems of record that must quickly operate together as result of massive mergers and acquisitions Using such repositories, or groups o...

Dell may be gearing up to launch one or more new smartphones, possibly based on Google's Android operating system and/or Windows Mobile software. The prototypes, according to a Wall Street Journal report that cited anonymous sources, might include a touchscreen-based model and another with a slide-out keyboard. Apparently, Dell has had engineers w...

The government-backed mortgage bank Fannie Mae has already had its share of negative headlines over the past year, but officials there were close to suffering another major setback: a case of computer sabotage that would have resulted in millions of dollars in damage and wiped out customer mortgage data on the lender's 4,000 computer servers Rajend...

Nortel Networks on Thursday announced that it has discontinued its mobile WiMax joint agreement with Alvarion. Nortel characterized the move as an effort to refocus its business, better manage its investments and strengthen its broader carrier business to better position itself for competitiveness.

The U.S. Postal Service is thinking of curtailing deliveries. Postmaster General John Potter asked Congress on Wednesday to allow the postal service to go to a five-day delivery week in an effort to cut costs and bring ballooning operating deficits under control USPS has been hit hard by the rise of e-mail, which has dramatically decreased the numb...

From time to time, attorneys ask me to act as mediator in a situation where partners in a business are not getting along. My experience has been that partners act more like a team when they are struggling together to make the company survive. But surprisingly, the business is usually quite profitable when the partners begin to argue. Once the comp...

As the recession deepens and spreads across the globe, people have been asking themselves variations of the same questions: Can my company survive the recession? Can my industry? My home town? Global outsourcers are no different. It might seem that this industry would have a degree of immunity from recessionary forces: After all, companies use outs...

As the recession deepens and spreads across the globe, people have been asking themselves variations of the same questions: Can my company survive the recession? Can my industry? My home town? Global outsourcers are no different. It might seem that this industry would have a degree of immunity from recessionary forces: After all, companies use outs...

As the recession deepens and spreads across the globe, people have been asking themselves variations of the same questions: Can my company survive the recession? Can my industry? My home town? Global outsourcers are no different. It might seem that this industry would have a degree of immunity from recessionary forces: After all, companies use outs...

It may be as sexy as grandma's underpants, but data is the foundation upon which everything else is layered. Without the right support underneath, the fat will roll over your margins, creating an unsightly, unseemly, unprofitable business bulge "While it sounds a little boring, managing data as the key strategic asset has become a corporate imperat...