Opinion

Small and Medium Business Software Development

Analysts: Seeing the future by looking backward? (Dave Dargo)

I really wish Dave would write more often. Yesterday he wrote about analysts and the value they provide, as well as their track record on open source. The gist? Analysts get paid to interpret the past, not the future, and so have missed the significa

Client-Side Web References

Two books live on my desk when I'm working on Web pages with client-side scripting: David Flanagan's JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, 5th Edition (O'Reilly, 2006, 994 pp., $49.99, ISBN 978-0-596-10199-2), and Danny Goodman&#

By Martin Heller

SOA, the Good News and the Bad News

I came across this article by Colin Beasty posted yesterday, "SOA Comes at a Cost." The good news: "Service-oriented architecture (SOA) will be used in more than 50 percent of new mission-critical operational applications and business

When should you run from scary code?

A top consulting company asked whether I would write some software that would intercept Web pages and replace certain words with other words. I said I could and went into some detail about how I would use a combination of regular expressions and buil

By InfoWorld Anonymous

Apr 27, 2007 4 mins

Data Management

Review: Appro XtremeWorkstation mixes Opteron horsepower and superior graphics at a nice price

In the old days, a workstation was an expensive Unix system running a RISC processor and proprietary graphics system, often with a price tag in the six-figure range. Today a workstation is typically a beefed-up desktop PC, and it might run Unix, Linu

By Logan Harbaugh

Apr 27, 2007 3 mins

Software Development Technology Industry

Will SAS 2.0 grow greener storage?

PMC-Sierra ships the first SAS 2.0 controller with hopes that it will be as successful as FC — as well as more efficient

By Mario Apicella

Apr 27, 2007 3 mins

How to become an exceptional security manager

Going back to basics can often improve your success rate more than buying the latest and greatest security product

By Roger Grimes

Apr 27, 2007 5 mins

Careers Security

Free Upgrade Still a Distant Vista

Tomorrow is always a day away. But one reader is beginning to think that, when it comes to getting the Vista upgrade from Microsoft and the Moduslink fulfillment service, four to six weeks is always four to six weeks away. "As you probably recal

By Ed Foster

Apr 27, 2007 4 mins

Practical SOA for Government

As I'm blogging today, I'm sitting at the Zap Think and Linthicum Group, LLC, Practical SOA for Government in Tyson's Corner Virginia. The house was full, but the great thing about today was the number of questions and the resulting di

Oracle’s Unbreakable Linux…All about Microsoft?

I had lunch with a friend today that is making me reconsider some of my previous comments on Oracle's Unbreakable Linux moves. I still think the company went about it in the wrong way, but it makes more sense to me now. What If Oracle's mov

Review: Put some ZIP in your data and e-mail security

. You might remember (or even still use) the original ZIP for DOS — initially developed to save precious network bandwidth by compressing files. And you're probably aware that over time, PKWare improved this ubiquitous technology to keep up wit

By Mike Heck

Apr 26, 2007 3 mins

Test Center Tracker: Filers shatter language barriers

Fresh from the Test Center:: Trying to meet your file serving needs while juggling NFS, CIFS, and up-and-coming iSCSI can be a tricky. Fortunately, an increasing number of storage vendors are creating filers that can handle all those standards at onc

By Ted Samson

WiMax bypasses the Bells

Are Towerstream's metro meshes harbingers of freedom from Internet tiering? Internet tiering, the practice of assigning smaller subscribers reduced qualities of service, bugs the hell out of me. It's a move to reapportion bandwidth in overs

By Jill Terry

Apr 26, 2007 4 mins

SMB Tech News Today; 4/26

* Dell gets into solid state, too. The Dell guys won't let Sony get the best of 'em, so they're introing a solid state disk option on the Latitude line of notebooks. Hey, solid disks are nice, but I wish they'd get this exploding

Data and Information Security Small and Medium Business Technology Industry

RIP, electronic medical records?

Kaiser Permanente's pioneering foray into digitizing health care records may mean the concept goes belly up

By David Margulius

Apr 26, 2007 3 mins

Off-topic: The Marriott Way

Since Dave and I spend so much time harping on the foibles of others, I thought I'd give a little digital ink in praise of a company that consumes far too many nights away from home. Marriott. I stay at Marriotts (Courtyards and Residence Inns m

The problem with cheap

I find Wal-Mart fascinating. Wal-Mart is a near perfect example of Clayton Christensen's "Innovator's Dilemma," in many ways. The very things that have made it spectacularly successful are also causing its stuttered growth, as Bus

Apr 26, 2007 4 mins

A kinder, gentler Oracle?

Well, some of it, anyway. At least, so says Josh Greenbaum about Oracle's John Wookey (head of Oracle's applications efforts) attempts to brush Oracle with a kinder, gentler image.My rumor is the following: John Wookey…is personally chagr

The Mac rolls on…

No, Apple is not an open source company (though it has made use of some interesting open source technology to build an exceptional operating system, browser, etc.). But I love to see news like this that it has, yet again, blown the doors of Wall Stre

Adobe’s big open source move

If any enterprise has much to gain from open source, it's Adobe. The company has long demonstrated an uncanny ability to mimic many of the best distribution methodologies associated with open source, making its Flash and PDF/Acrobat technologies

Apr 26, 2007 3 mins

XenSource and iSCSI Storage Partners Team Up

XenSource announced partnerships with several of the leading storage vendors to boost the comprehensive iSCSI storage support, included in its recently released XenEnterprise 3.2. The company's iSCSI support brings the benefits of high-end SANs

Software Development Technology Industry

BladeSystems Insight Hosts Over 300 IT Industry Executives at Debut Event

BladeSystems Insight, a national invitational summit focused on blade-based and other data center solutions, made its successful debut on April 10-12, 2007. At the event, over 300 participants attended which included senior-level IT executives from a

Quote of the day (Sun’s Sandeep Agrawal)

With spokespeople like this how could Sun not be on a rebound… "There's really no reason that middle-class Americans, when they watch three or four hours of TV a day, shouldn't be able to watch whatever they want when they want to w

By Dave Rosenberg

Apr 26, 2007 1 min

Microsoft loves open source (whurley)

Yeah, I just can't get my head around the idea that Microsoft really loves open source. I am sure there are many things they appreciate and certain programs that do potential good but really Microsoft loves nothing but Microsoft. Sorry whurley,

By Dave Rosenberg

Apr 26, 2007 1 min

Listen to whale song live from Davey Jone’s Locker…

To say that I live a double life is an understatement. Part of the time I work with the editorial staff of InfoWorld to do big iron reviews of emerging enterprise gear. The rest of the time I work at the University of Hawaii School of Ocean and Earth

By Brian Chee

SWsoft Announces Virtualization Starter Pack

Hoping to appeal to the small and medium sized organizations looking to deploy operating system virtualization, SWsoft just announced a turn-key offering of software and support for businesses for a price below the $1200 mark. And they are appropriat

Calif. guv threatens to sue EPA over GHG regulations

With summer approaching, Calif. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening to take on a new high-profile role: The Litigator. The state's eco-friendly ("environmentally hip?") Republican governor is threatening to sue the EPA if the

By Ted Samson

Databases heat up (Google + MySQL, EMC + Oracle)

Google (likely thanks to the good work Chris DiBona is doing there) continues to build momentum behind its open source activities. Its most recent contributions involve MySQL. I'm not geeky enough to understand their significance, but I apprecia

Professor refutes claims of IT job growth

The debate between industry organizations and those with their feet on the street continues over whether or not H-1B visas cause unemployment in the high tech sector. I received a very thoughtful response to the blog I posted on Tuesday, AEA study sa

By Ephraim Schwartz

Apr 25, 2007 4 mins

My (Latest) Dell Support Nightmare

These days it seems everyone has at least one Dell horror story to convey. In my case, the tale involves an XPS M1710 notebook and an extended overseas trip. At first, all was well with my new Dell. Performance was top-notch and the ergonomics of the

By Randall Kennedy

Small and Medium Business Software Development

AMD seeds Dell’s ‘Plant a Tree for Me’ program

Dell has found its first corporate partner for its "Plant a Tree for Me" program: cash-strapped AMD. AMD, which just recently announced a $611 million first-quarter loss and could soon be facing long-term debt of up to $5.4 billion, has scr

By Ted Samson

Apr 25, 2007 4 mins

Open source kingmaker IBM crowns MySQL

Curiouser and curiouser…. IBM today announced a technology and marketing partnership that will have IBM selling MySQL's database, among other things:The agreement calls for IBM and MySQL to develop software that will make MySQL compatible with

Is Microsoft’s monopoly kaput?

In just a few short days our choices in desktop operating systems seem to have tripled. Not only has Dell agreed to distribute Linux on certain desktop models, but it's also given XP a new lease on life. Responding to user requests on its Ideast

By Robert Cringely

Small and Medium Business Software Development

SMB Tech News Today; 4/25

* TJMaxx shopping for KY. This is going to hurt. But aside from nuking a company that seems to deserve it, this is also going to open the floodgates of data security lawsuits across all manner of businesses. Gonna mean a boom for both security vendor

Test Center Tracker: Wednesday smorgasbord

Pictures worth a thousand words: Conference calls and slideshows may be the way of life for remote workers, but as Brian Chee points out, once those talks start involving drawings or notes made by the presenter, the remote folks are out of luck. A ne

By Stephanie McLoughlin

InfoWorld LIVE! #12: Managed Services and SaaS

This week it's about discovering the difference between managed services and software as a service providers. Certainly siblings, but each has different goals, different technologies and as it turns out different concerns with government legisla

A C Programmer’s Vacation

Not quite 20 years ago, I was consulting for Symbolics, working on a Windows front end for PC Macsyma. I was writing Windows code in C, and working closely with a Symbolics LISP programmer named Frank. One day the two of us were in my office trying t

By Martin Heller

Choosing between the bird in your hand and the two in the bush

Dear Bob …I'm facing a possible major career dilemma.I was recently offered two jobs out of state, which dictated a relocation, and before I accepted either, I was contacted out of the blue by a third location, also out of state. This was on a

By Bob Lewis

Apr 25, 2007 5 mins

Red Hat Acquires MetaMatrix…More SOA Consolidation

It was not but last week that I discussed the issues around the consolidation in the world of SOA, and now we have another example. This week Red Hat decided to acquire MetaMatrix. "Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of

Eben Moglen moves on from the Free Software Foundation’s board

I never expected this: Eben Moglen, one-time general counsel of the Free Software Foundation and the legal genius behind it, has decided to move on:But this long drafting project, which has displaced most of the rest of my professional life (and, it

Preview: McAfee’s DLP product stops your host’s data leaks

Data leak prevention (or protection) is all about making sure that data doesn't leave your organization without approval – a laudable goal. These days, I spend most of my time trying to convince people of the simple things they can do to prevent

By Victor R. Garza

Hosted services trump in-house deployments

Putting apps and faith in the hands of experts mean fewer and faster downtimes

SaaS Small and Medium Business Technology Industry

Apr 25, 2007 4 mins

What to do with brats

<p>I have a confession to make: I was a brat. I eventually got over it and became a quasi-productive member of society. But what lessons can we learn from what I went through, and how can you know when to fix, when to fry, and when to walk away

By John West

Apr 25, 2007 5 mins

Careers

VMware is not Slowing Down

Virtualization is a hot topic right now, and I don't think anybody questions that. Having been in this business for as long as I have, the news coming out about VMware's financial track record completely amazes me. Don't get me wrong,

Open source becoming more innovative?

Years ago, I remember pontificating that open source would never touch the application market. Narrowly viewing open source through the prism of the day, I said things like this (to John Koenig at IT Managers Journal):To date, enterprise-focused open

What’s Missing From SOA Governance?

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Thinstall Joins SAP Advisory Group for Virtualization

Thinstall, an application virtualization solution provider, today announced that it has joined the SAP Enterprise Services Community Advisory Group (CAG) for Virtualization. The group was formed in response to customer demand for solutions to impleme

Apr 24, 2007 2 mins

InfoWorld Reviews Desktop VM Managers from Kidaro and Sentillion

InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy recently put two third-party desktop virtualization management applications into the InfoWorld Test Center for a quick look at how the virtualized desktop is finally coming of age. The two products, Kidaro Managed Wor

Apr 24, 2007 2 mins

VMware Lab Manager 2.5 Reaches Public Beta

VMware, continuing its move up the virtualization application stack, is getting closer to releasing the latest version of its virtual lab management application – VMware Lab Manager 2.5. The company acquired Lab Manager from Akimbi last year and have

Apr 24, 2007 2 mins