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Ticked Off at Tick the Box Mentality 04 February, 2008 13:01:15
Does your executive search firm know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients?Does your executive search firm know its MIS managers from its elbow? Does it even know the difference between an MIS manager and a CIO, and if it does, can it explain that difference to its corporate clients? - +
Strategies for Dealing With IT Complexity 24 December, 2007 10:30:47
Every innovation, every business process improvement, comes with an IT complexity tax that must be paid by CIOs in time, money and sweat. Here are strategies to mitigate the increasing complexity of IT as it enables new business.Every innovation, every business process improvement, comes with an IT complexity tax that must be paid by CIOs in time, money and sweat. Here are strategies to mitigate the increasing complexity of IT as it enables new business. - +
9 Paths to Higher Performance 10 December, 2007 14:09:23
When an organization brings together talented people in a creative, collaborative environment it fosters a culture of high performance, which in turn leads to superior business resultsLike high-achieving individuals, some organizations seem to have the Midas touch. Virtually every initiative they touch earns them gold and even those that fail never seem to cost them much of anything at all - +
Doing Your Sums on . . . Build, Buy or Rent 05 November, 2007 13:32:30
You’re trying to build a world-class IT team, but everyone’s going after the same talent pool. What mix works best? Should you grow your own, draft your players or barter your way to the line-up you want to field?CIOs should never forget that while new technologies have a maturity cycle, the maturity cycle for human beings in IT is even longer - +
Process Trip 04 February, 2008 13:07:03
Why Maritz Travel revamped key business processes — and how business and IT came together to make it workWhen Rich Phillips became COO OF Maritz Travel about two and-a-half years ago, he sat down and took a hard look at the big industry picture
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Clean up your SOAP-based Web services 27 November, 2007 13:16:14
The Test Center inspects five worthy tools for keeping your services squeaky cleanSOAP is the currency of the SOA marketplace -- for now, anyway. Though SOAP's significance may diminish as Web services evolve, its importance for the time being is unquestionable. Therefore, a substantial portion of the QA work by Web service providers and consumers must entail verifying the accurate exchange of SOAP messages. Not surprisingly, several SOAP-focused Web service testing tools have appeared.
Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services. Web Security SaaS: The Next Generation of Web Security
Optimized Back-up and Recovery for VMWare for VMWare Infrastructure with EMC Avamar
The Secrets of C-Suite Success
The CIO Executive Council Guide to Success
A Guide to Next-Generation Backup, Recovery and Archive
An EMC Perspective on Data De-Duplication for Backup
Why Security SaaS Makes Sense Today
Revolutionising Back-up and Recovery
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Local businesses are wasting up to 50 percent of software development budgets because they lack the resources, tools and knowledge to conduct efficient software testing, according to market analysts.
Gartner application development analyst Partha Iyengar said shrinking time-to-market project deadlines and naivety about the benefits of software testing means that businesses are missing out on an opportunity to streamline and improve the quality of software development.
"The quicker turnaround of application development is affecting quality [and] regulatory issues and pressure to meet customer demand can directly impact the testing effort, which is why software testing will become centre stage," Iyengar said.
"A strong [software testing life-cycle] moves from testing the quality of software, to building quality into software, but this type of change is beyond most enterprises and most will need some form of third-party assistance.
"Software testing typically consumes about 25 percent of resources, including time frames and budgets, however most companies spend 45 to 50 percent in a typical testing life-cycle," he said.
He said most money is lost in rectifying post-implementation mistakes which originate in the initial requirements phase.
The lack of [industrial] benchmarking controls is a big problem for software testers because there isn't a culture of benchmarking in software development,
Post-implementation application errors are more damaging to business because of shrinking time-to-market deadlines, which increase regulatory, customer and competitive demands.
While large US and European corporates have recognized the importance of software testing, those which outsource the process are struggling to tie it to software development.
Iyengar said this failure undermines the effectiveness of software testing because the testers will not fully understand the project requirements, and the disconnect is heightened when the process is outsourced.
"Software testing is only successful in a mature organization which has strong knowledge of software development methodology," Iyengar said.
He said the attitude Australian businesses have to software testing is so far behind the US that they "do not even consider [software] testing as separate from development".
However, testing is set to take off in Australia over the next few years beginning with the largest enterprises, as quality improvements become more obvious in larger projects.
Companies losing the most on lax project development processes will spearhead the shift, according to Iyengar who said resilient business will augment in-house testing through slow incremental changes, while enterprises stressed by market demands will opt for an outsourced quick-fix.
Businesses must first create a solid benchmarking strategy if they want to re-engineer their software testing strategy. Projects should be measured against a small number of critical metrics throughout the entire development phase, while the few industrial benchmarking controls can be referenced for anecdotal feedback.
"The lack of [industrial] benchmarking controls is a big problem for software testers because there isn't a culture of benchmarking in software development," Iyengar said, adding that benchmarking can also be used to measure the performance of outsourced contracts.
2008 CIO Summit
19th August, 2008 Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney Developed in partnership with CIO Magazine, IDC, INTEP and the CIO Executive Council.
The world of the CIO is extremely complex and diverse. Multiple priorities demand attention and decisions are needed instantly. Individual teams need to be driven towards common goals, and businesses strive to become more mobile, agile and responsive. For CIOs, the challenge never ends.
Every year the CIO Summit identifies what is top of mind for CIOs across Australia and New Zealand, and offers insight for CIO benchmarking and vendor strategic planning alike.
Recent IDC research shows that over 59% of CIO's believe that 'to achieve their business strategies, technology should be used more aggressively than today.'
Join us on August 19th to discover how this is possible with the latest technologies including Virtualisation, Web 2.0, IP Surveillance and Software as a Service (Saas).
Click here for more information.
Please email Denyse_Robertson@idg.com.au for further information.
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CIO Live Podcast #79: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires Part II 05 October, 2007 06:00:00
For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders. - +
CIO Live Podcast #78: Brent D Taylor, author of The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires 28 September, 2007 17:34:25
For his new book, The Outsider's Edge: The Making of Self-Made Billionaires, social researcher Brent D Taylor spent four years of intensive research investigating the psychological make-up and backgrounds of some of the world's richest men and women, including IT luminaries Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs. Taylor discovered that, despite working in different industries and coming from different upbringings, they all have one thing in common -- they are all outsiders. - +
CIO Live Podcast #77: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part III 21 September, 2007 07:00:00
Part three in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance. - +
CIO Live Podcast #76: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part II 14 September, 2007 07:00:00
Part two in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance. - +
CIO Live Podcast #75: Panasonic Speeds Up Trans-Pacific File Transfers, Part I 07 September, 2007 07:00:05
Part one in our three-part special report from CIO's sister publication Network World in the US, as Paul Desmond reports from the Network World IT Roadmap Conference in Santa Clara, California. With development teams in the US and Japan, Panasonic needed a more efficient way to move very large files between the two locations. Iben Rodriguez, IT consultant for Panasonic Research and Development, explains how a storage-area network and virtual server technology helped speed up WAN performance.
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Information security governance: Centralized vs. distributed 05 September, 2008 10:15:00
Should security policies, procedures and processes be managed within a central body, or distributed at an individual level? You need to find the middle ground.The management of information risk has become a significant topic for all organizations, small and large alike. But for the large, multi-divisional organization, it poses the additional challenge of determining how to deploy an information security governance program among what are often disparate business units. Should the policies, procedures, and processes that define the program be developed and managed within a central, corporate body? Or perhaps responsibility would be better placed at the individual unit level? Is there a workable middle-ground? - +
DNS error brings Sophos antivirus updates to a halt 05 September, 2008 13:40:00
Optus, Internode and Equinix affected among others.A sporadic Domain Name Server (DNS) error has blocked Sophos anti-virus updates around the world. - +
Ouch! Security pros' worst mistakes 04 September, 2008 08:05:00
We've all done regrettable things on the job, but does any valuable wisdom come of it? Four security pros candidly explain their biggest blunders and what they learned in the processIt was a mistake so bad the person who made it asked that his name and company not be mentioned here. Let's call him Frank. - +
Security ROI: Fact or Fiction? 03 September, 2008 08:32:00
Bruce Schneier says ROI is a big deal in business, but it's a misnomer in security. Make sure your financial calculations are based on good data and sound methodologies.Return on investment, or ROI, is a big deal in business. Any business venture needs to demonstrate a positive return on investment, and a good one at that, in order to be viable. - +
Information Security and the Importance of Context 01 September, 2008 10:00:00
Those entrusted with information security must raise their contextual awarenessWhen the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was first created, it created a sudden need for tens of thousands of screeners. Getting a job as an airport screener was a pretty easy process. It seemed as though if you had a pulse, you were in. Jump forward to 2008 and becoming a screener is a bit harder as the TSA has instituted background checks, has upped the educational requirement to include a high school diploma or GED, and added other significant requirements.
Viva la Verticals! Key to Vendor Growth is Through Vertical Market Opportunities, Says IDC 05 September, 2008 11:05:00
F-Secure delivers fastest protection in the online world 04 September, 2008 16:50:00
Rogue security apps dominate Fortinet's Aug 2008 IT threat report 04 September, 2008 16:00:00
IntraPower Signs Deal with Australia’s Largest Service Station and Convenience Store Network 04 September, 2008 10:07:00
TANDBERG Begins Desktop Videoconferencing Roll-Out at New England Credit Union 03 September, 2008 16:01:00
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Wireless LANs: Is my enterprise at risk?
Achieve an overall understanding of the risks associated with wireless LANs. Discover their inherent properties, as well as what makes them different from wired networks. Read on to uncover a list of recently published articles on real-life breaches and incidents illustrating the need for proactive measures to mitigate wireless security risks.
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