Stories about: Edge Technologies

I recently endured another team-building, personality-rating exercise that again tagged me as an Introvert, which explains why I dislike team building exercises. This feeling was not improved when I got back to my desk to trawl through another half day of e-mails that accumulated in my absence

I am a very organized and procedural person. The evidence is in the hundreds of procedures, processes, plans, methodologies and a smattering of paradigms I have filed away. These were painstakingly defined, developed or stolen by me whenever I had a new project, as I always found it more exciting to create new procedures than modify existing ones. It gave me a great feeling of achievement to create new processes - a feeling I rarely got from the project itself as I rarely followed these procedures

I have just returned from a fact-finding mission about moving our IT operations offshore

You want some hype? I'll give you hype! Try unified communications, or UC, the technology that allows all data and voice communications to arrive at your one preferred device — no matter where you are! The concept is also referred to as unified messaging (UM), which illustrates just how hype-filled this topic is, since no one can agree on one name!

The lure of free phone calls might be enticing, but configuring commercial VoIP systems is still a black art

Emerging technologies, which can enable the creation of new products and services, can also disrupt existing markets and create new ones, according to participants in a panel discussion at the TIECon East 2007 conference in Boston, US

I am embracing that great tradition of those who can't do, teach by offering advice on how to be a successful manager of IT. Unlike many articles, my advice does not rely on authoritative surveys, interviews or research, as I think anecdotes and personal recollections are often undervalued as training tools

I'm convinced that this is the right time to implement a business intelligence (BI) solution. Other CIOs have ranked BI projects as the number one technology priority for 2007, so I need to get in quickly if I'm going to look proactive

If there was any question about whether the ERP market was in turmoil, the recent shakeup in senior management at ERP stalwart SAP that pushed out rising star Shai Agassi should have answered it. The shakeup at usually sedate SAP underscored the frayed nerves in the corporate boardroom of many leading ERP vendors, as technologies such as SOA and Web services enable enterprises to turn to smaller vendors and service providers who can deliver applications that meet their demands for speed, flexibility, and low overhead.

I'm seeing an increased emphasis on environmental greening of the IT industry. It may be due to the reduced levels of green on the actual environment due to ongoing drought, or to Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth. Gore recently addressed a group of 1500 Silicon Valley business leaders, imploring them to promote green technology that causes less pollution. Companies seem to be heeding his request in one of two ways: Green by Proxy or Do as I Say

I don't entirely trust the Internet. I realize this is not an original sentiment, but the rapid increase in financial usage of the Internet suggests that we now trust it a lot more.