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A few years ago, the History Channel had a program that covered great military disasters. One was the on the French Maginot Line. This was a line of supposedly impregnable forts that were put in place to prevent invasion by Germany after World War I. ...

The topic of IT scams, both those done to IT folks and those done by IT folks, has come up several times in conversations over the last month. Since internal audit organizations are receiving massive increases in funding, staffing and provisioning, I thought it would be good to review some of the more interesting IT scams so that you too will know some of the things that likely will be found in a large number of firms.

I have to admit a certain bias for personal robotics. Nearly two decades ago, when I was first married, our ring bearer was a robot, and one right off the production line. Even today, he remains with us in his little home in the corner of our cellar, where you can almost hear him mumble: "Honestly, I didn't order that extra case of champagne; it was your old boss. Lemme out." We remember him fondly for his ability to entertain children and trip the older guests...

The ever-controversial analyst Rob Enderle, hanging out in the Dodger Stadium parking lot next to his bright red, SCO Edition Ferrari after the historic arm-wrestling match, spoke to attendees via bullhorn as they filed from the stadium "This love affair can't possibly last," ...

At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) last week, Microsoft raised the bar on what has become one of the more interesting battles in the industry. Actually, it would be more accurate to say Microsoft has taken the gloves off and now -- really -- is going after the entertainment segment ...

Last week I flew down to the launch of the new Starbucks music service and got far more out of the event than a cup of coffee and some free music. I got a sense of why Starbucks is as successful as it is and why HP is suddenly emerging as the company to beat in the technology space. I also went away with a better understanding of the future of music services.

As I write this column, I am at an amazing conference session full of attendees who are influencing the world. Ranging from marketing executives to media consultants to top journalists, these people have influence over the perceptions that shape our reality. ...

I sit on a lot of PC company advisory boards, and, while this may surprise you, I actually point out Apple's competitive advantages on a regular basis. The problem for me is Apple's market share, which is at a tiny and stable 2.6 percent of the PC marketplace ...

Last week at the RSA conference in soggy California, Microsoft presented the most comprehensive plan I've ever seen to address a security problem. Granted, they currently have massive exposure, but it caused me to wonder what would happen if everyone followed their lead and focused on the human aspects of the problem rather than just the technical ...

When I first moved into management, I was a big fan of outsourcing. It has huge advantages if your eye is on the next higher job. It removes -- almost immediately -- the vast complexities of managing lots of people, and in most countries that includes racial issues, sexual issues, benefits, unions, taxes and moods. It also seems to make budgeting much easier, and it frees up massive amounts of your time -- at least initially.

Phishers are recycling old con games from the analog world and mass marketing them thanks to digital communication, according to Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group in San Jose, California "The Internet has taken what had been a one-on-one con and...

However, industry analyst Rob Enderle told the E-Commerce Times that although Intel's R&D is weighted toward Itanium, it is not a 64-bit world yet. According to him, the transition to 64-bit probably will take at least five years as applications are rewritten and deployed for this architecture...

In case you live on the moon, what happened last week was that a small amount of Microsoft source code was leaked to the Web. Granted, small is relative. The leaked code consisted of more lines than I've ever written in my life, but early measurements had it at about 15 percent of Windows 2000. ...

This week, we will get one of the best views on how well the separation between the Palm hardware and software units is going, and, coincidentally, we'll also get yet another view of what probably would have happened had Apple taken a similar risk a few years ago and separated itself into hardware and software units. The fact that Apple missed a big opportunity resonates well with the conclusion that was inescapable once we saw how well the iPod did. Apple could have competed very well with PC vendors if it had stepped up to the challenge and not chickened out...

Last Thursday morning, the topic on the Today Show was the MyDoom worm. Matt Lauer, one of the show's two anchors, was interviewing an Internet expert and asked a question near and dear to my own heart: "Is this new virus cyberterrorism?" The expert said no, it was more like cyber vandalism. Clearly, IT experts are seeing a difference that many reporters and I don't see anymore. Even the Terrorism Research Center is now tracking the MyDoom virus...

At this time of year in the United States we have a tradition: It is called Super Bowl Sunday. In this annual tradition, we spend prodigious sums of money to have an extremely large TV installed in our homes, have lots of friends over to watch a bunch of guys run up and down a big lawn, and then fail to actually watch the game because we are too busy eating and talking. It doesn't matter anyway because the two teams playing are generally so mismatched that the outcome is almost always known in the first 15 minutes or so...

Here in the United States, we are in the midst of regularly scheduled insanity where, as part of the process to elect our top government official, the party that opposes the current administration does its best to discredit all of its eligible candidates and then wonders why a sitting president is almost always reelected for another term ...

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held in Las Vegas every year is perhaps the most exciting show for the technology enthusiast to attend. There were several high-profile announcements made during the show -- and some were only made to a select number of analysts. Perhaps the biggest public announcement was the partnership between Apple and HP, which will create an HP-branded iPod that will work not only with iTunes, but also with HP's Media Center products based on Microsoft's platform...

As the market starts ramping up for what is likely to be a resurgence in IT spending and a mass attack on the consumer by every technology company on the planet, there will be a few key battles to watch this year. Some will go a long way toward defining the rest of the decade ...

Making a set of New Year's resolutions for myself is certainly helpful but generally not nearly as much fun as making them for others. The year 2003 has been a time of change. It has brought a lot of exciting new experiences for me, and, frankly, I'd like fewer of them in 2004. ...