Datamation Staff

Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft’s Windows Division, gave the first comprehensive demonstration of Windows 8 Wednesday at the All Things Digital 9 (D9)conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. Although Sinofsky showed the upcoming operating system running on an Intel x86 platform, another Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) executive halfway across the world at the giant Computex trade […]

The vast treasure trove of iPhone apps is the envy of competing phone platforms. Microsoft has a solution to its own (so far) modest offering: romance the iPhone developers to port their apps to Windows Phone. Stuart Johnston reports. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 (WP7) has been both touted and trivialized by pundits, developers, and users. […]

Business intelligence software projects — often quite expensive, and launched with high hopes — have an abysmal success rate. Wayne Kernochan discusses the problem. Recently, Gartner noted a study that purported to show that “between 70% and 80% of BI projects fail.” Ordinarily, I would treat this kind of statement, from Gartner or anyone else, […]

With hackers growing ever more sophisticated, fully protecting your data is that much more difficult. The following guidelines are based on a recent report by Ernst & Young. It is time to rethink information security programs and strategies to keep your company’s most valuable assets safe, according to Information Security in a Borderless World, a […]

With the seemingly endless torrent of new malware being created, one might expect a corresponding wave of patches. But no — apparently the patches aren’t keeping up. Sean Michael Kerner reports. According to a new report from IBM (NYSE:IBM), 2010 was a good year — for new security vulnerabilities. The annual IBM X-Force 2010 Trend […]

Tech Comics: “Smartphone Etiquette” Next Cartoon: “Information Overload” Next Cartoon: “Information Overload” The creator of the Geek and Poke cartoon series is Oliver Widder. Previous tech cartoons by the talented Oliver Widder: • Tech Comics: “A Geek is Born” • Tech Comics: “A Geek Cheats?” • Tech Comics: “Social Networking Made Easy” • Tech Comics: […]

In my last cloud computing commentary in this space, I described how a growing number of organizations of all sizes are recognizing the potential benefits of Cloud Computing and are beginning to consider their options. Now, the question is: who will help you sort through the myriad of choices and capitalize on the rapidly expanding […]

With all the focus on iPads I’ve begun to wonder whether we’ve forgotten about the laptop computer entirely. Yet as I watch people use their iPads many seem to work to turn them back into 10-hour laptops computers bay adding keyboards and cases which mimic this same form factor. When pressed, most also admit that […]

Some developers crank out code for years…and years…and years. How do you know when it’s perhaps been a bit toooo long? Alex Genadinik offers some light-hearted suggestions. As software engineers, we are often faced with difficult and abstract challenges. At times we can get quite carried away with solving our engineering problems and lose all […]

Many companies are eager to off-load some components of their operations yet retain some aspects in-house. Jabez Gan discusses running Microsoft Exchange both on-premise and off-premise. Organizations interested in some of the benefits of cloud computing have the option to run Exchange Servers in-house, but host mailboxes at Microsoft’s data center. This is known as […]

Big vendors know that growing a knowledgeable cohort of IT professionals is a good way to boost their business. Doug Kass reports on VMware’s efforts. VMware Inc. has armed channel partners to deliver on the promise of virtualization technology with a raft of new specializations, certifications, solution competencies and toolkits, offered up at the vendor’s […]

Data storage expert Henry Newman details the unique problems in planning for disaster recovery for large archives — a growing concern, given the exponential growth in today’s data archives. Disaster recovery (DR) is often discussed in broad terms throughout the storage industry, but in this article I will explore a specific segment of the overall […]