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| Volume 7, Issue 7 |
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In This Issue:
 Five IT projects that need your attention right now
Three tips for creating a business-savvy information technology staff
How to lay dead technologies to rest
A tech chief reviews the Apple iPhone: My first 90 days
 In depth: Apple's Leopard leaps to new heights
CIO calls for IT to use a more personal touch
IT job cuts dip; noncertified skills pay on the rise
Study shows IT employees need help with handling stress
America's techiest cities: Silicon Valley No. 1, but who's No. 2?
 Microsoft: Be afraid, be very afraid
The perils of dirty data
Handheld supercomputers only 10-15 years away
 Symantec: Virtualization can ease data center woes
The balance sheet on Windows Vista
Microsoft dials up phone ambitions
Google's love for solar may extend to other renewables
Video: Vision for the robotic future
 Linux losing market share to Windows server
5.3% growth expected in starting IT salaries
The 13 scariest things in IT in 2007
 Is your Blackberry lowering your IQ?
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Five IT projects that need your attention right now
You have only so much funding and time, so don't waste either of them. These projects can make you a hero or at least can save you from one of those terrible "learning experiences."
There's always too much to do. If you had an infinite budget and project schedule, or at least more resources than you have now, you could accomplish impressive things for your company. Performing triage means you need to pick IT projects that can
deliver the most bang for the buck. Accordingly, we discuss five projects that deserve a CIO's immediate attention. We chose these projects because they have a measurable impact, contain elements with a relatively fast ROI, and enhance both
network security and manageability. To start with, we discuss...
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Three tips for creating a business-savvy information technology staff
Your information technology staff is a great resource for competitive advantage, but only if you help your employees understand how the company makes money.
Without technology, you wouldn't have a business. And yet, information technology staffs often do not have an integrated view of how technology enables their company to make money. Getting that knowledge and providing it to your staff should be a
priority, says Todd Davis, vice president of property systems development and administration for Choice Hotels International, the franchiser of such brands as Comfort Inn, Clarion and Econolodge. When your staff knows where the money comes
from and where it goes, they are better able to see opportunities to differentiate the company from the competition. While it's true that some IT departments are
content in playing the traditional role of service provider, the majority needs to play a larger role in...
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How to lay dead technologies to rest
Disney wants new business projects to plan for decommissioning obsolete or unsupported technology up front.
Inside every company live systems that, although built on old technology, are core to the business and can't be migrated easily to more modern software or hardware. That's the nature of IT. Build and install an application today, knowing that in
five or eight tomorrows, the technology will be outdated. Project managers try to choose technology they think won't get obsolete quickly or one that future products can link to. Crystal ball stuff like that is tough and no one predicts accurately
all the time. Even today's modern SAP or Oracle enterprise resource planning suite will be a legacy system someday. Disney is trying to come at the problem another way: making business and IT people involved in project planning aware that...
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A tech chief reviews the Apple iPhone: My first 90 days
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Hugh Scott, a VP of IS for Direct Energy, tells how this year's mega-gadget fits into his personal life, and why it doesn't fit into his work life.
Hugh Scott loves his Apple iPhone. And Scott, VP of IS for the wholesale business unit of Direct Energy, a retail energy provider with annual revenue of $8 billion, knows mobile devices: His IT staff of 60 supports some 500 smart phones. But even
Scott, who seven months ago called himself a "dyed in the wool BlackBerry user," doesn't pretend the iPhone is perfect, especially for business users. Scott spoke with CIO's Al Sacco about why he rushed out to buy an iPhone, what the device's best
and worst features are, and why Direct Energy doesn't plan to support it. I suffer from gadget envy. And the gadgets I like best are the ones that nobody else has yet. So when I heard about the Apple iPhone, I decided immediately to get one. First of
all, the thing is just so cool. I have to confess, I was an Apple fan long before the iPhone rumors began to circulate. I own three iMacs and three iPods. I love their intuitive user interfaces, and I love the way they look, from the flat, swivel
screen iMac in my home office to the pulsing heartbeat on my wife's iBook that sits on our kitchen table. Right off the bat, a few factors made me think I should wait on purchasing the iPhone: It's not a third generation (3G) device, the camera is
only 2 megapixels and Apple would inevitably lower the price before the holidays--but as soon as I saw my first iPhone in "the wild," I ran out and bought the 8GB version. (Why would I want to have anything less?) It was July 2, less than
a week after Apple released the device in the United States. Like everyone else who eagerly awaited the iPhone's release, I had high expectations. Did the device live up to those expectations?...
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In Depth: Apple's Leopard leaps to new heights
A refined look, revamped apps and new options build on an already solid OS foundation.
It's been two years, five months and 26 days since Apple Inc. last released a new operating system -- the longest gap between releases since the company first released Mac OS X six years ago. Mac OS X 10.5, better known as "Leopard," hits
store shelves six months after it was initially expected -- and more than a year and a half after Apple CEO Steve Jobs first showed it off in mid-2006. So, is it worth the wait? And, more important, is it worth the $129 price tag? For Mac users, the
answer to that question depends on whether they're happy with the current OS, Version 10.4 "Tiger," whether they're using hardware that can run Leopard, and whether they're brave enough to install a .0 version of any operating system. (Just
ask Windows Vista users about that.)What's new in Leopard? A lot. (See our Leopard Image Gallery.) From the unified interface (goodbye, brushed aluminum) to major under-the-hood changes, to wholly new apps, Leopard is a substantial, albeit evolutionary, advance for Mac OS X that builds on a solid
foundation and adds a modicum of eye candy to reinforce the notion that this is something new and improved. It's also fast -- especially impressive given the new
graphics sprinkled throughout the OS. While Apple lists more than 300 changes for the OS, most users will be focused on...
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CIO calls for IT to use a more personal touch
Leslie Brennan, CIO of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, drew laughs at Gartner Inc.’s IT Expo here when she described how her
organization improves communication with users — by meeting face to face rather than using e-mail.
Improving communication “is really talking to the business, not e-mailing the business,” she told the BlackBerry-carrying audience members. “It’s more than just getting up and talking business — it’s talking to each other.” Encouraging
face-to-face interaction teaches IT professionals “to behave a little bit more professionally — a little more businesslike,” Brennan added. Other IT managers at the conference agreed that CIOs must get the entire IT operation to embrace
business-oriented thinking. “You are only as good as your staff,” said Michael Goodwin, senior vice president of IT at Hallmark Cards Inc. in Kansas City, Mo. Goodwin said that IT staffers need to...
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IT job cuts dip; noncertified skills pay on the rise
But job losses in the semiconductor industry could hit IT workers down the road.
If you're looking for a new job in IT, keep in mind two trends: Technology job cuts are at the lowest level of the year, and -- for the first time ever -- pay for noncertified IT workers now averages more than pay for workers with IT
certifications. The upshot: It may be a good time to land an IT job, and workers with real-world experience are less likely nowadays to take a pay hit just because they lack certification. Those are the conclusions of two separate studies
conducted by Chicago-based global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. and by Foote Partners LLC, an IT workforce research consultancy. The Challenger report found that...
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Study shows IT employees need help with handling stress
A Canadian graduate school study suggests companies should start investing in IT-specific employee assistance programs and offer more peer support for technology professionals who are struggling to manage their stress levels.
A Canadian graduate school study suggests companies should start investing in IT-specific employee assistance programs and offer more peer support for technology professionals who are struggling to manage their stress levels. The study, "Of Races
to Run and Battles to be Won: Technical Skill Updating, Stress and Coping of IT Professionals," also recommended companies look for optimism as a key personality trait when recruiting for IT roles that demand intensive and constant technical
skill updating. The results of the study, which was conducted by a group of researchers at the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business, will be published in a human resources management journal later this year. In the
meantime, an overview is available. Nicole Haggerty, an assistant professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business who worked on the study, said the research did not involve a large survey sample but instead focused on ...
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America's techiest cities: Silicon Valley No. 1, but who's No. 2?
Hint: It's not Boston or Seattle, according to Census Bureau stats.
The highest concentration of IT professionals in the U.S. is -- you guessed it -- in Silicon Valley. But naming the No. 2 spot isn't as easy, and the answer might surprise you. The runner-up isn't a well-known tech center like Boston or
Seattle/Redmond; it's the Washington metro area. "It kind of belies some of the perceptions of where the hiring is, where people work in this field," said John Challenger, president of Chicago-based outsourcing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas
Inc. "[Many typically] think that most people in IT work in Silicon Valley, and they might add in Washington state, Seattle and maybe Austin," he said.
Data for 2006 from the U.S. Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey (ACS), released just last month, reveal what could be called a metropolitan area's "TQ" (technology quotient) -- how "techie" a region's
overall workforce is, based on the number of self-reported computer professionals. And some of the results turn stereotypes upside down...
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Microsoft: Be afraid, be very afraid
Here's a scary thought: Microsoft can take over your computer wherever you are, and do whatever it wants to.
On this Halloween day I can think of few things more frightening (except maybe a blind date with Larry Ellison). Like Dracula or Freddy from Nightmare on Elm Street, Microsoft is a reliable boogieman who still has teeth (or a razor sharp fingernails). Last week the Redmond Re-animators still proved they still had the fright stuff, thanks to yet another snafu involving Windows Update. In this episode, enterprises reported that Update automatically installed...
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The perils of dirty data
How important is data cleansing and validation? Read these tales of horror, and beware.
Few IT projects are more frightening than data integration and reconciliation. Actually, let us rephrase that. One thing is more frightening -- when data integration goes bad. Sometimes it's a problem of starting out with bad data,
through user error or even deliberate sabotage. Sometimes the data starts out good but gets lost, truncated, or altered when it moves from one system or database to another. Your data may go stale, or it may become collateral damage in a turf war
inside your organization -- everyone clinging to their own little piece of the data store, nobody willing to share. The task certainly isn't helped by the overwhelming volume of data companies generate each day. Data projects can go bad in many ways.
Here are five of the most common: what went wrong, what happened as a result, and what you can do to avoid having the same thing happen to you...
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Handheld supercomputers only 10-15 years away
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You know, everybody says we'll get to a physical limit but every time we think we're going to hit it, we overcome it," |
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Nanotechnology researcher Michael Zaiser says that with the progress the tech world is making, handheld supercomputer is less than two decades away.
One nanotechnology researcher said supercomputers small enough to fit into the palm of your hand are only 10 or 15 years away. "If things continue to go the way they have been in the past few decades, then it's 10 years," said Michael Zaiser, a
professor and researcher at the University of Edinburgh School of Engineering and Electronics. "The human brain is very good at working on microprocessor problems, so I think we are close -- 10 years, maybe 15." Zaiser's research into nanowires should
help move that timeline along. For the last five years, he has been studying how tiny wires -- 1,000 times thinner than a human hair -- behave when manipulated. He explained that each such miniscule wire tends to behave differently when put under
the same amount of pressure. Therefore, it has been impossible to line them up close to each other in tiny microprocessors in a production atmosphere. Zaiser said he's now figured out how to make the wires behave uniformly...
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Symantec: Virtualization can ease data center woes
Server virtualization and consolidation can help data center chiefs in their struggle with increased workloads and shrinking budgets, according to a recent survey.
The biggest challenges for data center managers are tough internal service-level agreements, continuing data center expansion, and staffing issues,
according to research from security specialist Symantec. Two-thirds of survey respondents said...
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The balance sheet on Windows Vista
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Yes, there's one or two models you can find someplace in the world of PCs that don't run Windows Vista. But the machines that sell all run Windows Vista." --Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft |
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Windows Vista has certainly had its fair share of naysayers, but the operating system is clearly finding its way onto lots and lots of PCs.
In last week's earnings announcement, Microsoft reported a 25 percent increase in revenue from the unit that sells Windows for notebook and desktop PCs. Granted, some of that bump came from a crackdown in piracy and because more people are opting for
"premium" versions of Vista. Still, the company has now managed to sell 88 million copies of the operating system, a significant tally. "We have a lot of consumer interest and enthusiasm around it," CEO Steve Ballmer said in an interview with CNET
News.com last week. Vista has picked up momentum in recent months, said Samir Bhavnani, an analyst at Current Analysis West. "It got off to kind of a rocky start," he said. "There was a very vocal minority of people that were kind of
ripping into Vista." On the corporate side, momentum has been...
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Microsoft dials up phone ambitions
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The era of dialing blind, the era of playing phone tag, the era of voice-mail jam...that era is ending. --Jeff Raikes, president, Microsoft business division. |
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After years of planning its move into telephony, Microsoft is finally ready to start taking calls.
At an event here Tuesday morning, Chairman Bill Gates and Business Division President Jeff Raikes formally launched several products that are key to Microsoft's strategy of offering "unified communications" for businesses--that is, software for bringing together e-mail, instant messaging, voice mail and telephony. [The most significant of the new products, Office Communications Server 2007, is a considerable expansion of its predecessor...] The event took place at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium--a venue better known for rock concerts than tech launches. It kicked off with...
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Google's love for solar may extend to other renewables
When it comes to bragging rights and solar power, Google's on top: it has the largest corporate installation of solar-powered electricity yet.
But that apparently is just the beginning. The search giant is also considering other forms of renewable energy, according to Robyn Beavers, the director of environmental programs at Google. Google intends to generate 50 megawatts of
electricity from renewable forms for its operations by 2012. Beavers spoke at the Conference on Clean Energy here on Monday where she outlined a number of initiatives
that Google participates in aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Those include...
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Video: Vision for the robotic future
Robot develop-ment takes center stage
...
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Linux losing market share to Windows server
Experts say that migrations from Unix to Linux have slowed down because all the low-hanging fruit has now been picked.
Linux growth in the U.S. x86 server market has, over the past six quarters, started to falter and reverse its positive course relative to Windows Server and the market as a whole. The annual rate at which Linux is growing in the x86 server space has
fallen from around 53 percent in 2003, when Windows Server growth was in the mid-20 percent range, to a negative 4 percent growth in calendar year 2006, IDC Quarterly Server Tracker figures show. Over the same time period, Windows has...
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5.3% growth expected in starting IT salaries
If you work in network or desktop security, the next year will be a great year for you according to a new salary guide, which rates yours as the job category with the most growth within IT departments in 2008.
The 2008 IT Salary Guide from Robert Half Technology, released on Oct. 22, is based on analysis of the job placements managed by the company's U.S. offices. The analysis found that nearly 15 percent of firms said that they intended to increase their IT staff in 2008. Starting salaries among
IT pros are expected to increase by 5.3 percent in 2008, and high-demand areas such as applications or Web development, network management or database administration
will see pay increases of 7 percent or higher. "This was not really a surprise. The strong increases are still in...
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The 13 scariest things in IT in 2007
[Spooky] Slide Show
Vista
All the applications are spooky-flaky, and it scares up angry ghouls calling the help desk all day...
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Is your Blackberry lowering your IQ?
Researchers have found that communication overload causes a professional's IQ to drop 10 percentage points. Think about that before you bombard the staff with e-mail
An on-again, off-again player, I attended my first tennis clinic of the summer this last weekend. I was taken aback by the BlackBerry addled behavior which newly seems de rigeur courtside. Between each drill at least two of the five participating players would scurry
off to sidelines, rummage in a sports bag, pull out a BlackBerry and check their email. In 50% of cases this was then followed by a furtive phone call. The tennis pro rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath but seemed to have learnt to tolerate these goings-on. Along
with tennis whites telephone etiquette seems to have gone out the window. So what's the deal here? Have the demands of our professional lives become...
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