David Needle

In the tech world, the year is finishing much like 2006, with Google still dominating the search landscape despite increased competition from heavyweight players like Yahoo and Microsoft and innovative startups like Powerset and Hakia. Competitors would have had a much better chance if the search giant instead stood still during the year (as if […]

Spreadsheets are a wonderful planning and financial analysis tool, but a simple mistake can throw off a budget or expense tally costing companies thousands or even millions of dollars. Also, without proper controls, spreadsheets can be manipulated for personal gain or other criminal behavior. A number of solutions have emerged to help keep spreadsheets under […]

Sun announced the pricing, availability and further details of the xVM Ops Center virtualization management software it unveiled last month at the Oracle OpenWorld conference. Ops Center goes hand-in-hand with Sun’s other announcement at the conference, its xVM virtualization software. Another part of today’s announcement is that Sun will release the source code used to […]

What do YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook and iTunes all have in common? You might be surprised to know that the four popular Web sites are the top four tech-related search terms on Yahoo. The Sunnyvale, CA-based Internet portal just completed an analysis of top trends for 2007 based on billions of searches at its site this […]

Oracle’s lawsuit over alleged trade secrets theft by an SAP subsidiary seemed to be on the back burner, but heated up quickly Monday. The company announced that “several managers” and Andrew Nelson, the CEO of TomorrowNow, “have chosen to resign.” Also, SAP said it is considering selling off the subsidiary. In September, a U.S. District […]

SAN FRANCISCO – Oracle’s famous CEO didn’t need musician Billy Joel to introduce him at Oracle OpenWorld to get the audience’s attention, but if you can afford it, why not? “Do you want me to sing while you play piano?” Larry Ellison asked as Joel walked off stage and the crowd laughed. But Joel didn’t […]

Robbie Brillhart had one of those rare opportunities in IT to start over. The tech press is rife with new technology announcements that sound great, but before most companies consider implementation they have to take their entrenched or legacy systems into account. New software, for example, requires training and may present compatibility issues with the […]

Jeremy Burton has fought both sides of the employee communications battle. As executive vice president of the data management group at Veritas, he tried to ban e-mail between employees on Fridays. That was in 2004, before the company merged with Symantec. “We had over a hundred people sitting within 50 yards of each other sending […]

If you use Outlook, but have trouble keeping track of the glut of e-mail the Microsoft program collects, a solution may be at hand. The latest version of the ClearContext Information Management System (IMS) released this week, Version 4, extends the software’s ability to organize Outlook by priority and other criteria with three new key […]

Google may finally go public with its “Google Phone” plans today. Rumors have been swirling that Google plans to make an announcement of some kind soon with a few of the largest U.S. wireless carriers, including Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless. A blog post in the Wall Street Journal’s online edition, citing unnamed sources, said […]