Enterprise IT

Dell's Weak Q1 Earnings Throw Fuel on Buyout Fire
May 17, 2013

Dell's quarterly earnings fell short of Wall Street expectations this week, leading to more questions about whether or not shareholders will accept Michael Dell's buyout offer and regroup as a private company. The PC maker reported a net income of $130 million, or 7 cents per share, during its most recent quarter.

InsideView Provides New Insights Into Sales Leads
May 17, 2013

InsideView earlier this month debuted a new marketing offering housed on its InsideView CRM Intelligence Platform. This first iteration of InsideView for Marketing focuses on automated lead enrichment capabilities, said Marc Perramond, VP of product. It was built with an eye to enhancing a company's lead records with social, media and financial information.

New Yorker Launches Strongbox Source-Protection Service
May 16, 2013

The New Yorker has launched Strongbox, an anonymous system for providing the publication with information, based on the open source DeadDrop program developed by the late Aaron Swartz and Kevin Poulsen. Strongbox can be thought of as an extension of the mailing address printed in small type on the magazine's inside cover, said The New Yorker.

Google Takes Maps to Next Level
May 16, 2013

Google Maps, already the de facto standard for online and mobile maps, is breaking new ground with added capabilities announced on Wednesday at the Google I/O Conference in San Francisco. Maps will get 3D views, speech recognition, enhanced voice search capabilities and will leverage artificial intelligence. Google Maps for mobile is also being enhanced.

Cisco's Data Center Sales Spark Q1 Earnings
May 16, 2013

Cisco's quarterly earnings report beat Wall Street expectations this week, giving investors a hint of confidence in the constantly evolving tech industry. The networking company reported a net income of $2.48 billion, or 46 cents per share. That's up from the $2.17 billion it earned during the same time last year. Revenue was up 5.4 percent to $12.22 billion.

Square Stand Lets Small Retailers Put Their iPads to Work
May 15, 2013

Square announced Tuesday it would reach out to retail outlets with its new Square Stand, an iPad dock that can handle business transactions and customer analytics. The mobile payments processing startup said small and medium-sized businesses would be able to collect customer loyalty information when they ring up sales. Square Stand replaces the cash register.

Google Tears Down the Storage Walls
May 14, 2013

Google has consolidated the storage allowances for its various products. It will now provide 15 GB of free storage space for use across Drive, Gmail and Google+ Photos. Before, Google gave users 10 GB for Gmail and 5 GB to be used for Drive and Google+ Photos. Google is also updating its Google Drive storage page with pie charts displaying how those 15 GB are being allocated.

Budget Roadblocks Stymie Federal IT Managers
May 14, 2013

Government information technology managers will no doubt spend every nickel of the Obama administration's 2014 proposed IT budget of $81 billion. They will also likely be dissatisfied with the business environment that affects IT acquisition and deployment. For starters, the proposed 2014 budget for IT, which actually shows a small gain versus anticipated 2013 spending, is not a sure thing.

CRM's Stairway to Stardom
May 14, 2013

Although the acronym "CRM" has been around for a long time, most people have no idea what it means. That's kind of a shame, because they brush up against the effects of CRM every day in their interactions with the businesses they patronize. As a result, when I say I write about CRM, I'm often asked to explain what it is. That leads me to think a lot about a practical definition of "CRM."

DHS Raises Alarm Over Cyberattacks on Critical Infrastructure
May 13, 2013

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has warned American companies involved with energy and infrastructure operations to be on their guard against cyberattacks. The warning was issued by the Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, which works to help protect critical infrastructure.

Bank Internet Links Can Give Hackers Keys to Vaults
May 13, 2013

Willie Sutton once said that he robbed banks because that's where the money was. If Sutton were living today, he might have made the career move to hacker. That would allow him to do what he liked to do best -- steal money -- on a global scale, which is what a ring of bank robbing hackers have been doing. Eight of the alleged cybercrooks were arrested in the U.S. last week.

Icahn Leads New Pitch to Win Dell Shareholders
May 11, 2013

Two of Dell's largest stockholders, Carl Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management, have teamed up to propose an alternative to Michael Dell's plans to take his computer company private. The new deal on the table, issued in a letter to board members, involves a leveraged recapitalization that will pay investors and keep them on as shareholders in a public company.

FCC Plan to Boost Inflight WiFi Takes Off With Turbulence
May 11, 2013

As more airlines begin to offer WiFi, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission is proposing to increase the bandwidth available for inflight wireless broadband. The FCC is essentially basing its proposal on Qualcomm's submission to the government from July 2011. This raises the question of whether the FCC is perhaps too closely tied to one company in this area.

From BI to KPIs to Benchmark Success in the Cloud
May 10, 2013

Organizations of all sizes across an assortment of industries are using a growing set of cloud analytics solutions to address their Big Data, business intelligence and data integration challenges. Escalating competitive pressures and customer expectations are forcing organizations to find new ways to tap internal and external data sources to achieve their business goals.

Twilio Lets Devs Build Contact Centers in the Cloud
May 09, 2013

Twilio last week rolled out capabilities that extend its communications API platform into the cloud contact center market. The new functionality is aimed at companies that want to migrate part or all of their traditional contact center operations to the cloud, or those that want to enhance existing traditional operations with a cloud-based component.

Obama May Pick Twitter Lawyer for Privacy Post
May 08, 2013

The Obama administration appears to be sending a message to privacy advocates that it's taking their issue seriously by creating a new position devoted to it -- and choosing a high-profile tech lawyer to occupy it. The White House reportedly is tagging Nicole Wong, Twitter's legal director for products, for a top privacy post.

Adobe Crowds Its Cloud, Says Buh-Bye to Boxed Software
May 07, 2013

Adobe announced major changes to its business model this week and revealed that from now on, it will sell its software via a monthly subscription plan and forgo boxed software and perpetual licenses. The maker of popular creative software such as Photoshop and InDesign unveiled the new policy at its MAX conference this week.

HP Goes to Work With New ProBooks for SMBs
May 07, 2013

HP, facing difficulties in its desktop and laptop sales, on Monday unveiled two new series in its ProBook notebook computer line for small and medium businesses. The ProBook 400 series has five laptops with screen sizes ranging from 13.3 to 17.3 inches that are up to 36 percent thinner and 18 percent lighter than previous notebooks.

Federal Workers Lead Telecommuting Upsurge
May 07, 2013

U.S. government employees led a big jump in the use of technology to work from home or other locations, instead of their normal offices, during an annual telecommuting exercise in March. For employers and vendors, the message seems clear that the market for telework and mobile workplace equipment and software has only one way to go -- up.

IE8 Exploit Had US Nuke Workers in Its Sights
May 06, 2013

A zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer 8 let hackers compromise a U.S. Department of Labor website linked to a database used by former Energy Department employees who had worked with nuclear weapons or uranium. That database was also used by Labor Department claims examiners. Security firm Invincea first reported the attack.