Although Oracle, NEC, Wyse and other major vendors have long promoted diskless PCs, the technology has failed to establish a beachhead within enterprise IT shops. This appears to be changing with the release of Microsoft’s Vista operating system. Vista offers virtualization features specifically designed to make diskless PCs — also
Something scary is happening in the world of computing. Even though everything is getting smaller and more powerful, we’re faced with increasing demand for power to run systems, keep them cool and house them. Although disk drive capacity requirements double every year, if companies require more drives, the issues become
When IT consultant Mike Benz’s phone rings, it’s often a client struggling with a software development project gone bad. Recently, for example, a retailer called the certified project management professional (PMP) in Minneapolis, Minn., in a panic: They needed to change their computer software, hardware and their business practices in
Keeping a business on course and profitable requires a corporate leader to make judicious decisions at every step. It’s no surprise, then, that decision support systems (DSS), long used at the operational levels of enterprises, have matured enough to become part of executives’ everyday tools. “Although some people think the
At one time, the IT staff’s mission was to stay out on the bleeding edge — first adopter, first adapter, first developer, first to market. But now the frontlines have changed, withdrawing to more cautious ground where bottom-line hemorrhaging can be stemmed and new strategies drawn. “Without IT and business
When USinternetworking, an application service provider (ASP) to more than 150 companies, was still very small, software architects and programmers were able to keep track of the available application codes and figure out how to make them work together. But as the Annapolis, Md. based company grew, the task rapidly
Social networking sites are designed to let people reach out to one another. As virtual communities of professions and connections to experts, they can be valuable business resources. But these very interactions that make networking sites valuable are the same ones that can leave corporate networks vulnerable to IT security
The clamor for convergence is reaching a deafening roar as IT departments seek new ways to make scarce budget dollars support broad and sweeping business changes. The more flexible and adaptable the technology, the better the play, the thinking goes. Better still: the technology becomes invisible, connecting multiple uses and
Despite the strategic value of data, many enterprises have yet to establish robust storage management strategies that keep important data readily available, the cost of managing it low and its access safe and secure. Given the huge proportion of corporate data that resides in unstructured or semi-structured form — such
High on the list of certainties, right after death and taxes, is the knowledge that the computers your company bought just three months ago are already obsolete. But when is the best time to upgrade? When developing technology refresh strategies, enterprises are caught between the pull of new technology and
