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  • 1

    Working well with different cultures

    In Europe, Greece’s parliament yesterday approved an austerity package. One wonders though whether financial instability will be replaced by financial and social instability.

    Written by Pradeep Khanna • 16 Feb. 12 11:07

  • Get ready for street commerce

    According to MIT Sloan, the global customer relationship management (CRM) market exceeds $50 billion annually and yet consistently 55-75 per cent of implementations fail to meet the expectations of business stakeholders. There are case studies of successful CRM projects, but it raises the question of the validity of building silos of customer data in the belief that it adds intrinsic value to the enterprise balance sheet or the customer experience. Will emerging technologies change the way we think about managing customer relationships and interactions?

    Written by Scott Stewart • 14 Feb. 12 10:36

  • Apple makes inroads into the enterprise

    Why the fuss? What's so important about Apple support in the enterprise? To say that nearly all business applications today are written for and developed specifically for the Windows operating environment is an understatement.

    Written by Jan-Jaap Jager • 07 Feb. 12 14:51

  • Don’t wait for Windows 8

    Windows XP is 10 years old, yet a substantial number of businesses are still using it. They’re not really at fault. Upgrading to Windows Vista was considered too much work for too little payoff, and for many businesses upgrading to Windows 7 has for a long time seemed unnecessary.

    Written by Rhys Evans • 07 Feb. 12 12:40
  • 1

    EMC IT predictions for 2012

    What will 2012 bring for IT?

    Written by Clive Gold • 30 Nov. 11 13:37
  • 1

    Customer service in the Cloud

    At the Gartner Summit in Sydney, delegates were asked if they agreed with the premise that by 2016, 20 per cent of all businesses’ IT would be based in the Cloud. Roughly 70 per cent of the people at the Summit considered the statement to be accurate. Depending on your own predictions on the take-up of Cloud and what your business’ IT looks like, that statistic is either quite surprising or completely underwhelming. But for once at least there’s some consensus on how Cloud is taking off, with all businesses now aware of the benefits it can deliver.

    Written by Simon Burke • 01 Nov. 11 13:13

  • The PC is dead

    I find it interesting how technology reinvents itself so rapidly. The reason for this is probably attributable to Moore’s Law or in fact the 'Highway Law'… build another lane, and cars and trucks will fill it. Incidentally, I think here is also a 'Hype law' in today’s IT social ecosystem that fuels our decisions, good and bad.

    Written by Andrew White • 31 Oct. 11 08:58

  • IT risk: More rhetoric than action

    Several recent spectacular IT system failures causing millions of dollars impact on pre-tax profit indicate the framework to identify and treat risks in organisations is more rhetoric than action, according to industry specialists Dean Slight, Chief Audit Executive and Devan Naidoo, Head of Audit for Technology at Tabcorp.

    Written by CIO Staff • 28 Sept. 11 16:41

  • Make mobility standard business practice

    Currently many IT departments have ‘mobility’ people. They manage the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), are the people who set up and administer iPhones, Android devices and Windows Mobile smartphones, and are often the go-to people for mobilising applications.

    Written by Tim Sheedy • 21 Sept. 11 10:00
  • 2

    The project management conundrum

    When I was in short pants, there was a great TV show called The Magic Boomerang. The sizzle for this show was that there was a boomerang from the Dreamtime which, when thrown, would stop time except for the person throwing it. The premise was then blatantly stolen for the film Clockstoppers, where once again teens could stop time via ‘hypertime’ watches and get up to all sorts of cheeky hi-jinks.

    Written by Chris Yates • 10 Sept. 11 11:16
  • 1

    The challenges of competing with Cloud computing providers

    In discussions about cloud computing and in comments readers leave on my blog posts, I commonly get statements along the lines of "Yeah, this cloud computing stuff sounds great, but at the end of the day, you have to have an IT guy solving problems like they've always done." In personal interactions, I often hear this sentiment portrayed as, "Public cloud computing is fine for the SMB and startup market, but enterprises aren't ready to move to that model." The tone of much of this feedback is that anyone who advocates cloud computing is at best naive or at worst incapable of understanding the real details of IT.

    Written by Bernard Golden • 27 Aug. 11 03:32

  • Vendor view: Five tips for integrating BI and ERP

    The Global Financial Crisis put Business Intelligence (BI) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integration in the spotlight. We needed to know urgently what was happening in our businesses and why.

    Written by Ian Whiting • 25 July 11 07:00

  • Vendor view: Taking your CRM mobile

    About 41 per cent of Australian consumers have now installed a mobile application on their phone, and, given their incredible popularity, it’s no surprise that businesses, and their employees, are crying out for mobile apps.

    Written by Ian Whiting • 19 July 11 12:38

  • How to achieve better results from your Oracle negotiation

    From its organisational complexity, to the challenge of finding good negotiation leverage, this growing technology giant can be one of the most challenging to work with. A recent survey of 20 different Oracle customer organisations within Forrester's Sourcing and Vendor Management (SVM) Leadership Council found that across the board, the primary point of contention was Oracle's lack of flexibility on price model evolution, volume/scope changes, and overall business transparency (such as pricing). Council members also expressed that from their perspective, Oracle constantly tries to upsell and increase their costs.

    Written by Duncan Jones • 07 July 11 08:04

  • Used IPv4 addresses need a ‘vehicle history check’

    Before buying a used car, prospective buyers can review vehicle histories in most states of Australia through a service such as the NSW Roads & Traffic Authority’s Vehicle History Check. The histories include information about how many owners the vehicle has had, whether it has been written off or stolen and other information that helps consumers understand the risks of purchasing the car. Now that new IPv4 addresses are history, there is a developing market for acquiring ‘used’ IPv4 addresses. And like used cars, there are risks involved in acquiring these used addresses. So, where is the Vehicle History Check for IPv4 addresses?

    Written by Qing Li • 10 June 11 10:08

  • Smartphones, security and the enterprise

    Smartphones are among the most important technological developments of our time. Since the advent of the first smartphones in the 1990s, these once cumbersome devices have become immensely powerful and sophisticated tools – not just individual communications devices, but whole computing platforms, capable of running a vast array of personal and business applications.

    Written by Richard Ting • 20 May 11 09:40

  • Finding the balance of power in technology real estate decisions is no easy task

    As business processes become automated, the business requires dependable IT while IT requires dependable real estate for secure power and cooling. Many multimillion dollar real estate transactions became obsolete within three years in Australia, Europe and North America due to a lack of understanding and foresight.

    Written by Simon Wise • 24 April 11 08:00

  • Think Tank: Tips for IT strategic planning success

    We all know that we need to get more value from information technology investments. That means IT projects, portfolios and priorities must be aligned to those of the business. IT strategic planning is often used as a tool to achieve this alignment and turn the business needs into results. But it is often not that easy! Many organisations develop a strategic plan but successful implementation is still difficult. Like in golf or chess, rules are well known but consistent performance is still hard.

    Written by Hemant Kogekar • 23 April 11 08:00

  • What do data centres and iPads have in common?

    Judging by the hardware announcements coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, you’d have to agree 2011 is a stellar year to be a consumer. It might actually be the best year on record.

    Written by Trevor Clarke • 22 April 11 09:00
  • 2

    Total cost of ownership is only part of the SaaS picture

    For me TCO is only part of the picture, using this measure in isolation can lead you to make suboptimal purchasing decisions. This is written with my experience of Salesforce front of mind, however this can apply to most SaaS providers.

    Written by Andy Pattinson • 14 April 11 15:54
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