Enterprise IT

The troubled launch of HealthCare.gov has been costly for President Obama and Democratic supporters of the entire Affordable Care Act program, also known as "Obamacare." The difficulties surrounding the launch have spurred broader criticism about the federal government's management of major IT deplo...

IBM's recent Enterprise 2013 conference in Orlando, Fla., was the Systems and Technology Group's inaugural event focusing on high-end business solutions. So it was no surprise that the CIOs, partners and IT practitioners -- data center admins and managers -- who work with IBM's System z mainframe an...

Fending off cybersecurity breaches from external sources is a difficult task -- but when breach problems arise from within an organization, the challenge of protecting information becomes even more difficult. While U.S. government agencies have intensified their use of cybersecurity control technolo...

Microsoft on Thursday announced revenue of $18.53 billion and net income of $5.24 billion for its first quarter of 2014. The earnings, which outperformed what analysts had been expecting, were driven in large part by strong sales of Office and the company's server software. They came in spite of the...

The tough political bargaining over the federal budget underscored by the recent government shutdown portends a continuing emphasis on keeping the cost of government under control. As federal agencies resume full operations after the budget and debt ceiling hiatus, it is clear that the goal of getti...

Customer testimonials play an odd role in many IT industry announcements. At first glance, they offer proof that technologies are actually being used successfully as advertised, lending credence to vendors' sometimes lofty go-to-market claims. Even the most enthusiastic clients tend to guarded, thou...

While the federal market for cloud technologies promises to be a prime opportunity for vendors, it is becoming clear that providers cannot expect the phone to ring with orders from federal agencies. Instead, vendors will have to make investments in product development, marketing and other activities...

Oracle has released a whopper of a critical patch update for October, with 127 security fixes across several of the company's products. Of these, 51 are fixes for Java SE, and all but one of those will allow remote exploitation of a computer without authentication. Oracle recommends the patch be app...

The impact of the U.S. government budget impasse on federal information technology operations is likely to be minimal if the duration of the shutdown is relatively short. However, as the suspension of federal agency operations enters its third week, federal IT vendors are finding themselves in an in...

Although the cloud marketplace is growing rapidly, the current rate of growth will continue only if a broader set of strong channel companies emerge to extend the reach of today's cloud leaders into new industries and geographies. I've been suggesting for years that building more channels to market...

Amazon this week unveiled a new program designed to draw third-party developers to the company's platform. Known as "Appstore Developer Select," the program offers incentives such as promotional boosts to developers that optimize their apps or games for the Amazon Appstore and the Fire OS. "Mobile a...

The Obama administration has upheld a ban won by Apple earlier this year that requires Samsung Electronics to stop importing certain smartphones and tablets into the U.S. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman made the announcement on Tuesday morning. "After carefully weighing policy consideration...

In a paperless society, office file cabinets may become an endangered species. However, the need to store documents will remain. The U.S. government is struggling to develop efficient means to retain billions of electronic messages. NARA is playing a central role in the government-wide effort to ret...

As the prolific trend of adoption would suggest, the case for cloud is compelling from both a business and technology perspective. There are a number of reasons for this, but one of the more compelling reasons from a technologist's point of view has to do with the ability to abstract lower levels of...

Silicon Valley loves an underdog. That's partly because such tales feed the industry's self-mythologizing and the IPO culture that attracts fresh money and new investors. To be honest, IT can boast more than its fair share of such successes: Hewlett and Packard, Jobs and Wozniak, and Page and Brin a...