Features

• How Cloud computing is forcing IT evolution

  By Bernard Golden | 02 March, 2012 03:15

  I had the privilege of chairing the infrastructure track at last week's Cloud Connect conference. Three of the presentations were particularly interesting, offering a good perspective on just how dramatic an effect cloud computing is having on IT. Summed up, the capability and agility of cloud computing is forcing an extremely rapid evolution.

• Guide: How to sync your PC, smartphone, and tablet

  By Loyd Case | 29 September, 2011 23:55

  A few years ago businesspeople carried a laptop on the road, used a desktop PC in the office, and worked on another PC at home. Maybe they had a BlackBerry, too--but only if they were real big shots.

• Cloud security: how to protect your data

  By CSO staff | 14 June, 2011 21:17

  To use Cloud computing securely requires companies to know where their data is stored and who has access to it. Ironically, the reason Cloud is so popular is because organisations don't want to worry about these details.

  So can the issue be solved by adhering to standards? Increasing legislation? Maybe we need a global technical disaster to ‘sober up’ an industry drunk on the power of Moore's Law.

• Google Apps vs Microsoft BPOS, Office 365 - Part 3

  By James Hutchinson | 30 March, 2011 07:00

  The shortfalls of Google Apps will likely resonate with the inordinate amount of Microsoft shops in the industry. Years of investment in SharePoint developers, Exchange support teams and business processes built around the fickle aspects of Microsoft Office and its ribbon interface cannot be discarded easily. That’s ultimately where Microsoft’s strength is likely to reside. No matter when its Office 365 bundle is released, and despite numerous attempts to forge links between legacy applications and Google Apps, the complexity of a migration for a large organisation would likely be a headache most CIOs are eager to avoid. At least, that can be said for Coca Cola Amatil CIO, Barry Simpson.

• Google Apps vs Microsoft BPOS, Office 365 - Part 2

  By James Hutchinson | 29 March, 2011 07:00

  Ultimately, some of the problems facing Microsoft’s Cloud strategy are those affecting many of its long-standing product suites. “Clearly Microsoft is trying to back-solve that problem to the legacy product set and clearly that’s problematic,” AAPT’s chief operating officer and effective CIO, David Yuile, says.

• Google Apps vs Microsoft BPOS, Office 365 - Part 1

  By James Hutchinson | 28 March, 2011 07:00

  IT behemoths, Microsoft and Google, have for years been embroiled in battles over who would control the move by different industries to the Cloud. Since at least 2007, Australian universities and education authorities eager to outsource their email have turned to either provider in lieu of limited competition from the market. For the next battle, however, the stakes are higher. Both Google and Microsoft are betting all of their chips on a sector that is likely to prove much more lucrative than any before it: Enterprise.

• How DRM could ensure cloud security

  By Keir Thomas | 04 February, 2011 05:53

  Yet another survey is indicating that security is a big issue for those intending to take up cloud computing.

• ClamAV promises free antivirus app for businesses

  By Keir Thomas | 19 January, 2011 05:34

  Most of us don't like paying for antivirus (AV) software, but at least home users can rely on one of the free options, such as Microsoft Security Essentials, avast!, or AVG Free.

• Motorola Atrix hints at a virtualized, cloud future

  By Keir Thomas | 08 January, 2011 08:07

  Motorola announced the Atrix smartphone at the Consumer Electronics Show, and while many have been concentrating on its 4G connectivity and clever desktop dock that lets it run a cut-down Linux desktop on a full-sized monitor, nearly everybody has missed something very important.

• Starting IT afresh

  By Brad Howarth | 18 October, 2010 12:00

  If your role involves managing IT within an organisation, starting a new job often means inheriting a hodgepodge of other people’s decisions strung together across generations of technology. The alternative is to join a start-up, but rarely does a start-up match the resources and budget that are afforded to IT in large existing organisations. So what if you could start from scratch without disrupting the business that you service?

• Why Google Docs will be a 'killer app' for tablets

  By John P. Mello Jr. | 21 September, 2010 09:24

  Google on Monday announced that it will introduce versions of Google Docs for tablets running both the Android and Apple iOS4 mobile operating systems.

• Going Google

  By Darren Horrigan | 03 September, 2010 08:41

  It is 8pm midweek and three senior executives at Altium are working on a document they need first thing the next day — a presentation to staff about behavioural change. The program manager is editing text; the company president is asking questions about the program; and CIO, Alan Perkins, is answering his president’s questions.

• Cloud computing definitions and solutions

  By Kevin Fogarty | 11 September, 2009 03:39

  Cloud computing: The very definition of cloud computing remains controversial. Consulting firm Accenture has crafted a useful, concise definition: the dynamic provisioning of IT capabilities (hardware, software, or services) from third parties over a network.

• Cloud security: time to smoke another one?

  By Bill Brenner | 01 September, 2009 04:19

  Chris Hoff, one of the most respected voices on the topic of virtualization and cloud security, once told me in an interview that people should shut up about securing the cloud because, in his opinion, there's no such thing as cloud security.

• CIOs take new look at sharing IT infrastructure, apps

  By Thomas Hoffman | 28 August, 2009 09:16

  The world's top hotel companies have collectively invested tens of millions of dollars to implement their own customized reservation systems--considered the heart of their operations. Each hotelier views the capabilities of these systems as providing them with some competitive advantage over how they calculate rates and room availability.