Adapting Legacy Networks to the Cloud

What is the best way to design network architectures for the cloud? That is literally the million-dollar question as cloud computing quickly evolves into the new normal for IT. No network at all? As I’ve mentioned before, many of the new Flash storage proponents say the best network is no network at all. Simply load…

Gameification: How ‘Kids’ Games Transform Business

Anyone who has children or who has been around them for a while knows that kids, as well as young adults, are attracted to video games like flies are attracted to light. And, while older adults may think the kids are being lazy or using their time idly when they’re connected to their Wii or…

Gameification: How ‘Kids’ Games Transform Business

Interactivity – For centuries, education and training have been, for the most part, passive experiences. Someone stands in front of a group and talks. The people being educated or trained sit and listen, taking a few notes here and there. If there is a lab, they will have some hands-on application, but application labs are…

What Next in Mobility?

by Ernie von Simson August is usually a slow somnolent month; a torpid time to loll at the beach, play with the kids, or read empty novels, certain that nothing strenuous can happen before Labor Day. This August was different. The IT sector’s dynamic mobile business suffered three major reversals: Apple lost Steve Jobs; HP…

Does Virtualization Save You Money?

Virtualization is one of the biggest trends in IT today. Gartner accurately points out it is the single most important technology for IT departments in 2010. As more and more organizations hop on the virtualization bandwagon, the question that should be asked: Does virtualization really lead to significant cost savings? Most IT and finance managers…

Windows 7 VDI Working Well

Windows 7 launched roughly a year ago riding a wave of pent-up PC refresh demand and arriving just in time for the budding cloud craze. But now that companies have actually deployed Windows 7 and its much touted VDI, it’s time to evaluate actual performance against all the pre-sell promises. In our random poll of…

6 Sharepoint Security Do’s and Don’ts … or

Microsoft SharePoint server is a widely implemented information portal. One of the main drivers of its success is that it is largely free. In a typical enterprise, there might be any number of authorized SharePoint servers to which almost everyone has access, plus a few that simply spring up and start growing for specific projects….

Better, Faster, Cheaper: Tomorrow’s Smartphone

iPhones and Droids may appear to be the alpha and omega of the smartphone revolution, but the upheaval is far from over. And no, the upcoming charge of change doesn’t have anything to do with Windows Phone 7 or any other late-to-the-fight contender. But Apple and Google can’t just sit back and claim to be…

Boots on the Ground – Cloud Computing Gets Real

We are at an historic inflection point, insists Sean Poulley, VP of Cloud Services at IBM. It’s is happening right before our eyes: the shift away from desktop computing. The move into cloud-based computing is in full swing. That, added Poulley, is an unexpected reversal of the great business computing revolution of the early 1980s….

SharePoint Dinged for Lack of Management Controls

A new survey from an important content management association finds that, although Microsoft’s SharePoint collaboration and document sharing server is racking up sales, many deployments lack thorough planning. The report, from the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), queried some 624 of its members regarding deployment of Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) SharePoint Server. “A recent…