Stories by Joab Jackson

IBM launches Watson customer service smart bot

Yoking cognitive computing with customer service, IBM has launched a system that can reference large amounts of unstructured data to help companies better field customer phone calls.

Microsoft rushes Explorer 8 patch release

Just 11 days after issuing an advisory, Microsoft has released a patch for a bug in Internet Explorer 8 that bedeviled the U.S. Department of Labor earlier this month.

Novell offers mobile file sharing for businesses

In an effort to help enterprises get a handle on the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend, Novell has released enterprise file sharing software that it claims is as easy to use as commercial cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Microsoft Skydrive, and Google Drive.

IBM bets $1 billion on Flash storage

The hard drive will soon be dead, at least for most uses in the enterprise, IBM is betting. The company is undertaking a major strategic initiative -- and US$1 billion in research -- to make flash the prominent form of storage in most organizations.

IBM moves toward post-silicon transistor

Exploring methods of computing without silicon, IBM has found a way to make transistors that could be fashioned into virtual circuitry that mimics how the human brain operates.

Microsoft monthly patches touch Exchange, Windows, Explorer

System administrators overseeing Microsoft Exchange deployments should take a close look at Microsoft's latest round of security patches. In addition to covering Windows and Internet Explorer, Microsoft's latest monthly batch of patches covers the widely used Exchange Server, both the Exchange Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2010 editions.

Symantec streamlines software lines

Security software provider Symantec is reworking its sales strategy, reorganizing software lines, slimming middle management and increasing marketing and research efforts.

Supercomputers face growing resilience problems

As supercomputers grow more powerful, they'll also grow more vulnerable to failure, thanks to the increased amount of built-in componentry. A few researchers at the recent SC12 conference, held last week in Salt Lake City, offered possible solutions to this growing problem.

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