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  • Supply chain management in Australia - Part 2

    If supply chain experts can spend so much time and effort improving efficiency and still have more work to do, how are smaller companies meant to get their supply chains right? It’s not as if they have been standing still: CIOs at FMCG organisations and other companies of all sizes have long focused on using high-end supply chain management solutions to trim fat from their company supply chains. Many embarked upon massive enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations a decade ago as they stared down the end-of-life of existing systems and the spectre of the Y2K bug. Yet while their intentions were good, the same can’t be said for the methods of resolution.

    Written by David Braue • 20 Sept. 11 06:00
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    Supply chain management in Australia - Part 1

    It all started, as these things sometimes do, with a chicken.

    Written by David Braue • 19 Sept. 11 10:59

  • Why Salesforce.com Chatter Matters

    CRM systems have large and intricate databases that describe customer interaction, and most of the effort goes into recording and managing the ongoing conversation between your firm and the customer. CRM systems have information about prospects, customers, e-mail/phone conversations, sales opportunities, and post-sale support. But look inside most CRM systems, and there's very little information about collaboration among your employees: just basic profile identification information and a dozen settings. In most CRM systems, it's difficult to see the totality of a user's activities: the system's focus is on the customer and the development of a deal, not about the conversations happening between users and their attempts to leverage information across your company.

    Written by David Taber • 16 April 10 04:34
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    Cloud Computing Shakes Up Traditional IT Outsourcing

    For all the vagaries of IT services, traditional IT outsourcing has always been quite tangible--servers, data centers, networks, specifications, man-hours, lines of code. The rise of cloud computing, however, is changing all of that with flexible, asset-free IT services available on an as-needed basis for more aspects of enterprise technology.

    Written by Stephanie Overby • 12 April 10 05:44

  • Productivity Tools in the Cloud: Real World Best Practices

    If you're an enterprise deciding whether now is the time to migrate your e-mail or SharePoint environment into a cloud service, there is a method to all this cloud madness. And if done right, it could transform your company's identity.

    Written by Shane O'Neill • 25 March 10 07:48

  • Software Licensing: New Options, New Headaches

    For decades, software buyers have been engaged in an "arranged marriage" type of relationship with software vendors: too much tradition, too little choice and a partnership of unequals from a deal's beginning. Typically, these deals had two key variables: the number of seat licenses (volume) a company purchased and the amount that the software publisher was willing to discount the purchase price, which was linked back to the volume.

    Written by Thomas Wailgum • 19 March 10 07:10

  • Inside MS Cloud Model for Productivity Apps

    Enterprises of all shapes and sizes are catching on to the value in moving e-mail and other productivity apps to the cloud where they can be delivered and managed by vendors like Microsoft, Google or Cisco.

    Written by Shane O'Neill • 16 March 10 05:22

  • Compliance Under a Cloud

    There's no doubt that cloud computing is dominating today's IT conversation among C-level security executives. Whether they're lured by its compelling cost savings or its perceived advantages, security leaders are probing the capabilities and restrictions of the cloud. At the same time, security and compliance concerns remain issues holding large enterprises back from capitalizing on the cloud's benefits.

    Written by Jim Hietala • 25 Feb. 10 11:33

  • Auckland council saves with SaaS docs management

    Auckland Regional Council (ARC) has eliminated costly outsourcing of document production by implementing a SaaS solution that handles collaboration and change management.

    Written by Rodney Gedda • 25 Feb. 10 14:28

  • Open source helps Facebook achieve massive app scalability

    People all over the world spend a total of eight billion minutes a day on Facebook. Some 3.5 billion pieces of content are shared every week, 400 billion Web pages are viewed every month and the site logs a staggering 25TB of data every day. David Recordon, senior open programs manager at Facebook, talks about how the social networking giant uses open source tools to achieve its massive app scalablilty.

    Written by Rodney Gedda • 24 Feb. 10 09:40

  • Cloud Computing: IT Operations Changes Are Mandatory

    Just before the holidays I had a really interesting conversation with my friend Bill Takacs, who works at Gear6. It is a company that offers memcached appliances, used in applications that have very high data loads that preclude using a database as the primary means of data access. He shared with me a common pattern he sees in companies that are heavy users of memcached, which, after some thought, I concluded offers a vision of the future of cloud computing operations.

    Written by Bernard Golden • 12 Jan. 10 08:27
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    5 Web 2.0 Startups to Watch in 2010

    There's no doubt that 2009 was a rough year for startups and established businesses alike, but many are holding out hope that 2010 will be different, especially since venture capitalists seem to be loosening their purse strings. Keep an eye on these five businesses that offer fresh ideas to the Web 2.0 arena.

    Written by Kristin Burnham • 08 Jan. 10 03:28
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    Why the Cloud Should Have Your Back-Up

    I realize I'm dating myself, but the first computer I ever owned didn't have a hard drive. It had two drive bays that held 5.25 inch floppies. Later, I bought a then revolutionary machine, an 8086 I think, with a 40 MB hard drive, and I wondered how anyone could ever fill it up. And the last time I moved, I discovered a box filled with floppies and 250 MB Zip drives.

    Written by Bill Snyder • 15 Dec. 09 05:53

  • First Class IT: Boeing Global CIO John Hinshaw

    Boeing CIO John M Hinshaw talks about rationalising IT, surviving the financial crisis and the challenges of migrating 200,000 desktops to Windows 7.

    Written by Rodney Gedda • 01 Dec. 09 11:14

  • Beware Cloud Computing's Hidden Costs

    Cloud service providers can make compelling and simple sales pitches in terms of cost of individual services-$100 per user per year sounds pretty good. But "hidden" expenses can alter a company's outlook. Costs related to people, processes, and architecture associated with both the transition and the operations require analysis and planning before signing up for a business case based on a move to the cloud. CIOs and other IT professionals are already well acquainted with such expenses, but the challenge will lie in uncovering them in the relatively unfamiliar cloud model and determining accountability for each.

    Written by Chris Curran • 05 Nov. 09 08:20

  • Dev/Test in the Cloud: Rules for Getting it Right

    In last week's post, I discussed why dev/test can be a good first use of cloud computing. Without rehashing the entire post, it's clear that dev/test is often hampered in its activities by the difficulty of getting enough computing resources to its job.

    Written by Bernard Golden • 02 Nov. 09 10:25

  • How to Plan Your Cloud Computing Mix

    Experienced CIOs have learned the hard way that achieving tangible benefits early in the technology lifecycle is no easy matter--whether its OO, CMMI, ITIL or SOA. Cloud computing shows promise and demands attention, but the related hoopla needs to be tempered with a good dose of business sense. The cloud, regardless of its variety, should never be considered an all-or-nothing proposition.

    Written by Chris Curran • 20 Oct. 09 09:32

  • 3 Keys to Using IaaS Public Clouds Wisely

    It seems as if every CIO comes back from a conference cocktail party demanding IT move to the cloud. While this can mean many things, including using software-as-a-service (SaaS), managed hosting, or application service providers (ASP), the demand often centers on moving applications out of your own budget-sucking data center and up to an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud platform.

    Written by James Staten • 20 Oct. 09 08:37

  • Behind Enemy Lines: Salesforce.com, Rimini Street

    Both tech vendors are aiming to change the rules of game for enterprise software. And while they're going about it with two different business models, the companies share some things in common.

    Written by Thomas Wailgum • 14 Oct. 09 08:01

  • 5 Things to Know about Software-as-a-Service Contracts

    How CIOs can guarantee secure SaaS contracts.

    Written by David F. Carr • 14 Oct. 09 01:42
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