About 30 years ago, I tried to calculate the mass of a glueball, a highly mysterious subatomic particle composed entirely of gluons, which are the infinitesimally tiny elementary particles that make it possible for protons and neutrons to stick together in atomic nuclei. As you can imagine, the calculations were extremely complex and required an enormous amount of computing power.

Today, technology permeates almost every facet of business. IT can no longer just support the business; in most global enterprises, it must become embedded in the business. Forrester predicted this evolution back in 2003: IT is no longer information technology, but business technology (BT), and the primary mission is about business enablement, not business support. But moving from IT to BT is much more than an acronym change. At its very core is a cultural change that involves not just IT but the entire organisation from the board of directors (BoD) to senior management down to the lowest level employee.

Robert Fort, CIO of music retailer Virgin Entertainment Group, would have liked to wave a magic wand to give key employees the ability to easily transition between voice, instant messaging and videoconferencing technologies. His practical answer: a unified communications environment

Mozilla has touted Firefox 3 as faster and more secure than earlier versions of the open-source web browser. But there's another reason to look at the browser upgrade: it is highly customizable for individual users by utilizing the massive library of Add-ons - additional features that users can choose to install on top of the browser.

Have you spent millions on management software and still struggle to quickly determine the root cause of network performance problems?

Last year, the big question about virtualization in data centres was: "How much money and time will this save us?" This year, the big question will be: "How secure are we?"

Reducing mobile voice and data costs is a top concern for CIOs, judging by comments at an enterprise mobile and wireless conference this week.

As the technology partner (head of IT) at global law firm Bryan Cave, John Alber saw increasing resources being devoted to keeping multiple information systems integrated and the data flowing among them. Over time, the law firm brought in what it considered the best tools to handle tasks such as document repositories, e-mail management, conflict-of-interest databases and calendar management, to help attorneys and support staff research, collaborate and stay abreast of case developments

Margaret Genet knows BlackBerrys. Though officially dubbed "operations analyst", she's the first Aflac employee to hold the unofficial title of "technology concierge". Genet's job number one: Teach executives how to be more efficient with mobile devices and applications

Keeping track of bids, vendor performance, previous contract terms, alternative providers and technology differences was taking too much time for Bernard "Bud" Mathaisel as he settled in as CIO of electronics manufacturer Solectron in 1999

Mess up internal search and you'll frustrate your employees. But mess up external search and you'll alienate your customers