When it comes to information technology, everything is about extremes. If you look back at the past three years, we have been living at one extreme end of the pendulum, which is now in the process of swinging back to the other extreme.
Having spent more than a year meeting technology chiefs of all different stripes, it's becoming clear that people who perform this role share an interesting set of psycho-demographic characteristics.
Everywhere you look these days, vendors are talking about web services.
The internet is everywhere and touches everything. The problem is that once something becomes ubiquitous, we have a tendency to take it for granted. And that would be a dreadful mistake given the unrealised potential of the internet.
For some inexplicable reason, people who build e-commerce sites on the web tend to take leave of their common sense when they first launch their new business venture.
Storage is one of those technologies that we tend to take for granted. And yet if we look at the true status of things today, storage is king.
BI (business intelligence), much like the phrase military intelligence, is an oxymoron that marries two seemingly incongruous ideas to describe a critical function.
Whether you believe the US is on the brink of a full-blown recession or just experiencing a temporary downturn, money will be tight for nearly everybody in the next few months or more.
There's just no substitute for great technology. Unfortunately, this is a maxim that frequently gets overlooked when it comes time to purchase a product.
As you look around today, it's become clear that as for technology and the workplace, the tail may be wagging the dog.
For years, supply-chain software received no respect. In fact, most existing supply-chain systems are broken in one way or another, which is a fact the business people are in some state of denial about.
Welcome to the new century. As we begin the new year, many of the IT priorities of 2000 will continue to hold sway through 2001. But the environment in which those projects will come to fruition has changed substantially.
Despite the trauma surrounding the high-profile failures of a rash of dot-coms, the rise and fall of these companies has forever changed the way business people think about technology.
The sky is falling, or so it might seem if you're heavily invested in tech stocks. But let's face it, the vast majority of stocks in this sector have been overvalued for far too long. Although the latest correction is surely an overreaction to short-term events, the changes on Wall Street will now benefit us in the long term.
The annual Comdex trade show held in Las Vegas is similar to a medieval fair, inasmuch as it's one part freak show, one part meeting place for the industry elite, and one part showcase for coming technological innovations. The freak show element of Comdex is usually provided by companies with a background in the consumer electronics industry.