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Anyone in the technology industry not captivated by recent events in North Africa and the Middle East needs to consider a change in career. First in Tunisia and then in Egypt, Internet-connected mobile devices and social networking sites were reportedly leveraged by protesters to effectively exchang...

EMC CEO and Chairman Joe Tucci called the company's "Smartest System" launch event in New York City, "not just largest in the history of the company but of the industry" -- but was that a fact or mere PR-speak? For my money, it was the former. The event found EMC playing at the top of its game with ...

I can't claim any sort of deep attachment to or experience with the Consumer Electronic Show since my business IT interests typically fall well outside its typical focus. But I've attended the past couple of shows for two simple reasons. First, vendors are increasingly attempting to inextricably lin...

Annual summing-ups are common currency during this season, but for some industries and some years they seem particularly valuable, such as business IT in 2010. Following 2009's devastating financial meltdown, many in IT hoped the new year might spark a partial recovery or at least provide some badly...

By any measure, IBM Connect, the annual IT analyst summit hosted by the company's Software Group (SWG), should have been a walk in the park. After all, the event followed close on the heels of IBM's System and Technology (STG) analyst briefing, and the central purpose of both events was to punctuate...

Aiming at the needs of business IT users is no new thing for Dell. The company's groundbreaking use of online sales and "just in time" manufacturing processes were designed for organizations that knew what they wanted in IT solutions but were struggling with the logistics of deploying and managing h...

On a daily basis, virtually every vendor actively tries to poach competitors' customers directly, through partners and via numerous incentive programs and product discounts. In addition, the decision to migrate is no simple technological issue, but one affected by a numerous mitigating factors: how ...

Last week's announcements centering on Intel's "Cloud 2015" vision represent one of the more intriguing cloud computing efforts to date. How so? First, out of the gate Cloud 2015 is resolutely client-facing. The related Open Data Center Alliance boasts over 70 large enterprise members such as BMW, D...

The IT industry purely loves "innovation," especially when it is steeped in a bit of controversy, and last November's announcement of Cisco, EMC and VMware's VCE coalition set enough tongues wagging to cause a minor blip in Silicon Valley's Richter scale readings. Why so? First, because the effort o...

IT conferences come in all shapes and sizes, with participants ranging from tens of thousands of general technology enthusiasts to mere hundreds of professionals with highly specialized skills. Intel's annual Developer Forum is relatively small compared to CES and Oracle OpenWorld, but attendees inc...

First a caveat: As part of my work, I attend a lot of IT vendor conferences and high-tech trade shows. Objectively speaking, most shows provide the means to literally and figuratively peek under the hood of usually interesting, sometimes intriguing vendor products and solutions. But conferences also...

Consolidation is a common theme in the IT sector, with IBM's purchase of Unica, Dell and HP's pursuit of 3PAR, and Intel's planned acquisition of security specialist McAfee standing as the most recent moves. Do such deals have anything in common? Sometimes. Large IT vendors tend to grow in two way...

There's interesting food for thought in Intel and GE's 50/50 joint venture focused on developing management solutions for people in independent and assisted living situations, as well as those with chronic diseases. The new company will combine assets of Intel's digital health group and GE Healthcar...

For most systems vendors, the launch of a next-generation server platform qualifies as a pretty big deal. After all, such occasions provide vendors multiple opportunities to strut their visionary stuff, roll out a host of satisfied customers, and highlight their current/future strategies. However, s...

Microsoft's launch of its Windows Azure platform appliance included more than a handful of significant partners. On the end user side, eBay said it will use the Azure platform appliance to manage and deliver customer services for its signature auction site. Considering eBay's high profile, requireme...

In opening its new Mass Lab on June 16, IBM stated that the facility that will focus energy and attention on mobile computing technologies. For me, that point recalled Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?, Louis Gerstner's memoir of his time at IBM. Hired when the company was on the brink of collapse, Ge...

Here's what HP says its new Web-enabled ePrint all-in-one printers will allow people to do: print from any email-enabled device; print documents or files stored in the "Google Cloud" and similar environments without a local proxy PC or Web appliance; transform printers into "publishing platforms" e...

News of Dell's upcoming Streak device arrived as the news about tablet computing heated up. Apple's iPad continues to sell like hotcakes, passing the 2 million milestone and leading analysts to suggest that total 2010 iPad sales will reach between 5 and 7 million units. Apple CEO Steve Jobs and othe...

Intel seems to have delivered the goods with its next-gen Atom processor-based platform. On the technical side, it includes Intel's Atom processor Z6xx Series Family, the Platform Controller Hub MP20 and a dedicated Mixed Signal IC. It adds 3-D graphics, video encode and decode, and memory and displ...

Last week, VMware and Salesforce.com announced a new partnership around VMforce, a Platform as a Service offering aimed at enterprise Java developers. The companies' CEOs -- VMware's Paul Maritz and Salesforce's Marc Benioff described VMforce as an enterprise cloud designed to serve the needs of m...