Stories about: Viewpoint

Riverbed Technology is set to tackle the issue of ensuring optimal network performance for applications hosted within a public cloud. Riverbed Cloud Steelhead is WAN optimisation software designed to help organisations improve performance whether they're using private, public and hybrid platforms - providing that they're already Steelhead users of course.

Even before Red Hat bought the virtualization company Qumranet, with its Linux KVM (Kernel Virtual Machine) platform, Red Hat had made it clear that it was moving into virtualization in a big way. At its annual Red Hat Summit in June, the Linux powerhouse announced that it would be deploying its Embedded Linux Hypervisor, oVirt, which is based on KVM in its server line. This lightweight, embeddable hypervisor currently enables users to run run Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Windows VMs on Linux.

Every mid-size company recognizes eventually that it has outgrown the ad-hoc, local processes that allowed it to function from the startup stage. Whether a company stays within a single country or expands globally, there comes a point when the pieces have all gone their own way and a central hand and guiding strategy becomes necessary.

If there is any doubt to the power of social media, social networking and social software, then nonbelievers may need to Think New Orleans.

A handful of uber-programmers are immediately recognizable to most software developers, often on a first-name basis-the way that other communities might recognize "Britney" or "Oprah" without further explanation. These individuals shape the way programmers design and build applications, by identifying process improvements or designing life-changing tools.

The value that a company can achieve with Enterprise Architecture (EA) by applying it to IT is just a fraction of its true potential. However, to reap the true benefits of EA may - in extreme cases - mean calling it something else.

For politicians, the key to success is winning the hearts and minds of the voters. Former US President Ronald Reagan was particularly adept at this, using his skills as "The Great Communicator" to get his message across and win the electorate over to his way of thinking. CIOs are not unlike political leaders in that their success depends largely on winning the hearts and minds of users and customers. Those CIOs who take communication seriously are likely to have an easier road to success.

For an executive who had just had his company bought for a cool billion a few months ago and was on the eve of announcing a major update to his business' flagship database program, former MySQL CEO Marten Mickos, now Sun Microsystems' senior vice president for databases, didn't look comfortable. Mickos had come to the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit at the University of Texas Super Computing Center to explain that MySQL was not about to abandon Linux. His audience, the movers and shakers of Linux business and development circles, were not overly impressed.

Disabled people have so far lost out on many of the benefits that technology has brought. But changes are on the way

Modern economies are hypochondriacs of the highest order. They check their own pulses at obsessive intervals, searching for symptoms of weakness, ever ready to fend off decline through stimulants that may or may not help the situation.