Gavin McCormick

When companies look to cut $1 million from their IT budgets, they might first consider delaying a hardware or software purchase. But here’s a potential cash saver that IT managers might have overlooked: passwords. It sounds mundane, but helping employees remember their passwords can save serious dollars. Take Cummins Inc., a Columbus, Ind., maker of […]

When Microsoft decided last year to systematically survey users of all the sites within MSN, the world’s second-largest Web network behind AOL Time Warner’s, the company had an instinctive reaction — let’s develop the survey software in-house. For starters, Microsoft had already built a simple survey tool that it used for internal research, housed inside […]

Southeastern regional telecom giant BellSouth knows that the more of its 16 million U.S. customers it can serve via Web page or e-mail, the more it can save on the most expensive element of its customer service: operators at its call center. The Atlanta corporation for years has conducted follow-up phone surveys of customers to […]

Conferences have been the force driving corporate Web video applications. Looking to save on travel expenses, businesses have hired a range of Web startups to install cameras and high-bandwidth connections that link boardrooms and satellite offices around the globe in teleconferenced “virtual meetings.” But Salton Inc. (NYSE:SFP), a Mount Prospect, Ill., company that sells appliances […]

Why would the National Football League, which sells very little directly to fans and thus has few “customers,” per se, spend big bucks to create a customer relationship management (CRM) campaign? Evan Kamer, who as the NFL’s senior director of new media is charged with thinking about ways to use the Web and e-mail for […]

Outsourcing network security is a fast-growing trend, and the sector developing to manage all security functions for businesses is undergoing tremendous change — both positive and negative. So-called “managed security service providers” (MSSPs) are attracting customers eager to pass off to specialists the oversight of firewalls, virtual private networks, and software for the detection of […]

Yes, the slowing economy has forced many IT managers to scale back budgets this year. But a series of recent surveys shows that corporate spending on info technology is still increasing, albeit at a slower rate and in different ways. While almost half of IT professionals asked by Web media firm TechRepublic said they’ve had […]