When combining cloud computing services with internal systems, confusion reigns. The reasons: lack of standards, concerns about availability and the potential for vendor lock-in.
Cloud computing promises the ability to move applications and systems to the location and platform that makes the most sense-in terms of risk and economics-at any given time. Retailers, for example, can buy extra transaction-processing capacity during holiday shopping season and give it up when sales ebb. Financial services companies might buy
infrastructure in which to test systems to support new products, then walk away from it when development is done. One cloud vendor may offer a better deal than another, prompting CIOs to switch providers. And as cloud computing evolves, some corporate IT systems will continue to reside in your data center, some perhaps with outsourcers and
others with one or more cloud vendors. You will have to manage it all as though it were one computing environment, without...
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CRM users need to be trained. But they don't particularly like training, and they sure don't remember it. Is there a better way?
We all know the drill: as a software deployment draws near, it must be time for training the users en masse. It's the only cost-effective way to get people up to speed and through the inevitable pains of transition. But it's only cost-effective on the surface, because if you look at what users are actually capable of 6 weeks later - and the
resulting adoption delays - the standard training really isn't very effective no matter what it costs. What if "how do we train everyone" is the wrong question? With most enterprise applications, there are standardized training courses that will cover 90 percent or more of the operational knowledge required of the user. With real CRM
systems, though, the percentage is much lower. Why? Because a killer CRM system must be...
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A Cloud Strategy for SMB Data Protection Many businesses are reluctant to enter The Cloud, but small and medium sized companies may get more security and IT help out of the deal.
While many small- and medium-sized businesses are hesitant about transitioning mission-critical applications and data into the cloud, there's a cloud-based strategy that could give them more confidence about making such moves.
Assumptions about a lack of availability to cloud-based data and applications and the perceived high costs of putting IT assets into the cloud are among the reasons businesses cite for not using cloud services. However, cloud-based data protection addresses these issues for small- and medium-sized businesses. The "mirroring" of data and
applications across different cloud platforms and the high level of redundancy cloud services offer are among the key attributes of data protection in the cloud. The cloud also can be an affordable solution for protecting mission-critical data and applications. In addition to data protection, small- and medium-sized businesses can look to
cloud platforms for...
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The Network World staff has assembled a series of primers examining the past, present and futures of 20 of the most prominent battles in the technology world...
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IT's Human Energy Crisis Fewer people and higher demand equals an IT disaster waiting to happen.
Word association time: When I say "IT energy," what do you think of?
After everything that's been written in the past couple of years about green IT and the amount of electricity that's needed to power data centers, you probably think first about the cost of our profligate energy consumption. That's a worthy concern, but I propose that the phrase "IT energy" should make you think instead about something
even more important: the vital human energy level of IT leaders, managers and workers. An essential question for all IT leaders to ponder is whether their IT organization is exothermic (that is, one that releases positive energy) or endothermic (one that sucks energy out of the enterprise). Research being conducted at the IT Leadership
Academy and the CIO Solutions Gallery at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University indicates that many -- indeed, most -- North American and European companies are facing a major...
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Are You a Social Networking Mutant? There is a mental difference in how non-tech generations see the world compared to tech generations. Which side are you on?
If you're between the ages of 20 and 60, chances are you're a hybrid human, when it comes to social networking.
Have you ever tried to get an older person to use Facebook? We bought my grandmother an iPad for her 98th birthday last week. Tellingly, she was able to use it very quickly and easily. She immediately started reading and sending e-mails, and playing some of the games we installed. She loves the iPad. Facebook? Not so much. The Facebook
account we set up for her was actively ignored. She hates Facebook. How can that be? Facebook is easy enough to use, and the payoff is enormous -- keeping in touch with her extensive network of family and friends. I've noticed the same phenomenon with...
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Are those real people in the "Hot Girls Want to Meet You" advertising? Here's the answer.
You've undoubtedly seen advertisements running down the right-hand side of your Facebook page (as in the example at left). Chances are some of them have promised you that "Hot singles are waiting for you!" But is the hot girl winking at you from the ad an actual user of the site? Probably not. Dating advertisements on Facebook often
promise to connect you with good-looking singles; and as if to prove that they've got the goods, they feature photographs of fit, attractive people flashing a coy smile. In a typical photo, the subject looks pretty casual, lounging in a T-shirt at home. In some instances they hold a camera out in front of them, as if they snapped the shot
themselves. In fact, most of these advertising photos look so unpolished that you'd swear they were actual Facebook profile pictures. So, where do these sexy coeds come from--Facebook, or elsewhere?...
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Often puzzling, always frustrating, the list of reasons why developers are denied access to Apple's iPhone App Store grows ever longer.
It seems as if a week doesn't pass without a new story of some app being rejected from Apple's iPhone App Store. Should developers really be surprised? Steve Jobs never wanted third-party
developers tinkering with his platform in the first place -- he thought Safari-based Web apps would be enough. Little wonder, then, that when Apple launched the App Store in 2008, it
was under strict conditions. Still, it'd be nice for Apple to make those conditions clear. Apple has been tinkering with the language of its iPhone SDK license agreement lately, but that hasn't
done much to clarify the rules -- unless you're Adobe. For everyone else, the App Store's requirements seem as vague and capricious as ever. So let's try to tally the score. There's no
guarantee that anyone's app will be accepted, but as near as I can tell, here are a few things you can do to get you booted off the App Store:...
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Mozilla's underlying Web browser technology also runs some interesting non-browser applications.
Web browsers built upon the same technologies that power Firefox are fairly common. (Flock, which integrates its user interface with social-networking sites, is one of the better known examples.) But there are also dozens of applications that rely on at least some aspects of the Mozilla platform. Here are 10 useful desktop programs that run
on the open-source Web browser's native technology. All of these applications are free for you to download and use -- and only one is a Web browser...
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You may think Apple's runaway success with the iPad, the rich and user-loved touch UI on the iPhone, and Apple's barrage of future-facing patents had really given finger-control a future in tablet PCs. But dear Bill Gates has a different view.
Bill was speaking to the Fox Business Network about a number of things, but the important thing to remember is that Bill tried to lead the charge into tablet-format PCs years ago. Gate's idea was to bolt support for
pen-based touch computing onto an otherwise common all-garden Windows XP environment. The machines would be adapted laptops, with touch sensitive screens that could rotate to cover the keyboard. Due to the conventional windows-icons-mice-pointers environment of Windows, a pen-based control was absolutely necessary, and it also enabled neat
tricks like handwriting recognition for text entry. But the tiny controls in Windows, optimized for precise pointer control, meant that...
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