IT Leadership - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Hadoop Is Ready for the Enterprise, IT Execs Say

  Despite some lingering user concerns about security and other issues, Hadoop is ready for enterprise use, according to IT executives at the Hadoop World conference in New York earlier this month.

• IBM opens up smartphone, tablet support for its workers

  IBM has embraced -- nearly -- the growing "bring your own device" trend of allowing employees to buy and use their own smartphones and tablets for work tasks, said IBM's CTO for mobility, Bill Bodin.

• John McCarthy, one of the fathers of AI, dies at 84

  <a href="http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/">John McCarthy</a> , one of the grandfathers of artificial intelligence, died Sunday. He was 84.

• With 250M tweets a day, Twitter plans 'simplicity' strategy

  SAN FRANCISCO -- With Twitter handling a quarter of a billion tweets a day, company CEO Dick Costolo said he's focusing on keeping things simple.

• Expecting a recession, Gartner urges 'creative destruction'

  ORLANDO -- Gartner Inc. sees another recession coming that will lead to tightened IT budgets at the same time that technology is being forced to respond to social and collaborative computing trends.

• At Dell World, Ballmer steers clear of tablets, phones and Apple

  With many still reflecting on the contributions of Steve Jobs, being at Dell World this week almost feels like living in an alternative universe.

• Steve Jobs' death creates Twitter surge

  Traffic hit near-record levels on Twitter on Wednesday after news spread of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' death.

• Cisco should cut 5,000 jobs, analyst says

  Networking giant Cisco needs to cut 5,000 jobs, nearly 7% of its total workforce, in August to remain competitive, one Wall Street analyst recommended Monday.

• Twitter to leave empty CTO post unfilled

  Twitter's CTO left the company last week and there's no move afoot to replace him.

• DVR box is dying, Woz' wisdom and other cool things learned at SNW

  SANTA CLARA, CALIF. - Every time I attend an SNW show, which equates to 20 in the past 10 years, I tend to learn something new because I get to speak with many cool tech people from many interesting industries.

• Cisco CEO calls for dramatic cuts and a narrowing of priorities

  Dramatic expense cuts and a narrowed focus on five networking technologies, including video, are coming to Cisco Systems as part of a massive planned turnaround, Cisco CEO John Chambers told financial analysts Thursday.

• Inside the next generation vendor management office

  Today, almost 50 per cent of companies have a centralized vendor management group in place, with 11 per cent planning to introduce one this year. Why are we seeing the growth of this unit within the organization? The main drivers for a business to invest in a VMO are to get more value out of existing suppliers and to lower overall costs through better rate negotiations and demand consolidation. Most often, the VMO is either housed in IT or procurement, depending on the business, and consists of two to ten people who are responsible for overseeing the big picture of vendor management.

• Take the guesswork out of business relationships

  We all understand the advantages partnering can bring to business. But, as any CIO who has had to negotiate a partnership-gone-bad knows, adversity is not often a good bedfellow when it comes to keeping partners — and your CEO — happy.

• Sprint CEO says AT&T takeover would stifle innovation

  ORLANDO -- Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said Tuesday that the proposed <a href="http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214822/AT_T_s_takeover_of_T_Mobile_creates_largest_U.S._carrier">$39 billion AT&amp;T takeover</a> of T-Mobile USA would "stifle innovation and put too much power in the hands of just two carriers."

• CIOs plot their response to tech's unstoppable forces

  PALM DESERT, Calif. - Insurance companies are always trying to peer into the future to determine risks. It's an approach that Frank Wander, the CIO and senior vice president of Guardian Life Insurance Co., uses as well in planning his company's IT direction.