News

Google Adds More Features to Enterprise Search Appliance

Analysts say the new features for Google's search appliance, which include improved security and access controls, will make the enterprise search tool more palatable for businesses.

What It’s Like to Work Overseas for the CIA’s IT Group

At the Central Intelligence Agency, many IT staffers have to go where the mission goes. And that means Iraq, Afghanistan and any other locale on the planet that needs a do-it-all tech guru.

The CIA’s CIO navigates a tense line between making data visible and keeping secrets

The CIA's big IT revamp required a resetting of relationships among IT and operations leaders, getting the mission side of the agency involved in data-sharing discussions and project management. And the CIA's CIO found himself navigating a

Patricia Morrison Leaves Motorola; Leslie Jones New CIO

VMware, Microsoft Take Back Seat as IT Industry Catches Up on Virtualization

The rush of secondary and tertiary players into the spotlight on virtualization isn't fad-based me-tooism, it's a reflection that suddenly every vendor has to be able to speak virtualization fluently, and have something interesting to say a

How IT moved to center stage at the CIA in the wake of 9/11

The CIA suffered through budget and personnel cuts and was a less-focused place in the days after the Cold War ended, and its IT systems struggled to aid in the CIA's new missions. But everything changed on 9/11, and IT became a focal point in t

‘A’ is for Architecture

Confused about the myriad definitions of SOA? The first thing you need to know is that it's an architecture. But don't forget that there's more to architecture than a blueprint.

A Quicker Path to the Clouds

Is your internal software too specialized and therefore too difficult to use with cloud computing, even if you want the cost savings? SOA can come to the rescue.

Doctors Group Mashup Uses SaaS Apps to Staff Hospitals During Hurricanes

Using SaaS apps such as Google Maps and Salesforce.com, the Schumacher Group, which provides staffing to hospitals in the south and Gulf of Mexico regions, has built a mashup that shows the likely location of both on-duty and off-duty physicians, an

Five Things Linus Torvalds Has Learned About Managing Software Projects

Linus Torvalds explains how he keeps the people and software on-track, with the software quality Linux demands.

Best Reuse Plays in SOA

Many companies, especially those outside the US, find that the reuse of services is their greatest organizational investment in SOA.

A Penguin with an Egg: Growing the Open-Source Community

Esther Schindler came home from OSCON with thoughts on growing the size of the pool in open-source development communities. And it's all upbeat news.

Who Is Al Tarasiuk?

The details on the CIO of the Central Intelligence Agency

Inside the CIA’s Extreme Technology Makeover, Part 1

Al Tarasiuk, the CIA's CIO, is on a mission to modernize the agency's IT practices and connections to the intelligence community. It's just like any other IT-business alignment project, except that he has to get disparate departments t

VMware webAccess Man-in-the-Middle Vulnerability and How to Dodge It

Certificate confusion poses problems for VMware users; no solution is complete, but start by not just clicking OK.

A New Role for CIOs

The SVP of Technology and Operations is emerging as a cool new role — and career path — for CIOs

Inside the E-Commerce Strategy That Could Save Borders, Part 2

As the struggling retailer makes a massive effort to win e-commerce success, can it capitalize on any late-mover advantages? Borders IT and business execs take CIO.com inside the technology effort, the early results and the competitive challenge that

Mobile Phones on Airplanes: Thumbs Up or Hang Up?

Goodwin Procter Makes Strong Case for Knowledge Management

Integrates data using Microsoft's Sharepoint

How Multimedia Tools Made Vanguard A Better Company

Mutual fund company uses Web 2.0 technology to help ncustomers invest better

Common Project Management Metrics Doom IT Departments to Failure

A new report from Forrester Research explains how IT project management metrics influence perceptions of failure and describes four specific measures project management offices can take to increase the perception of project success.

Why the 2008 CIO 100 Winners Are Focused on Operations and Controlling Costs

The 2008 CIO 100 honorees are focused on rnoperational innovationu2014transforming their infrastructure, analytic tools and business processes to control costs and enable the next level of competitive advantage.

Forrester: Enterprises Need Better Desktop Search for Employees

The lack of a good desktop search tool has caused many employees to download free software on the internet such as Google Desktop. A Forrester analyst talks about why such a strategy puts corporate data at risk.

Pros and Cons of VMware’s New Security Guide

The newest version, which includes specifics on hardening VI3.5, improves on previous guidance, but leaves enough gaps that customers following it will still be exposed.

VMware, Microsoft Virtualization Pitches Miss the Most Practical Issues

Exec at high-profile Hyper-V success-story firm says capacity planning, limiting sprawl and figuring out how to manage storage are all more important than what hypervisor you run.

Inside the E-Commerce Strategy That Could Save Borders, Part 1

Borders recently ended its outsourced e-commerce relationship with Amazon.com and debuted its own website. But does the flashy Borders.com arrive too late? In this two-part series, Borders IT and business execs take CIO.com inside the project that is

Teaching Kids to Program, or Don’t Try to Teach 8-Year-Olds Java Subclassing

Unsafe Texting Sends More to the ER: Doctor Offers Up 5 Tips

Use BI to Cut Cell Phone Bills

Business intelligence helps a mortgage company cut cell phone bills more than 30 percent per month. Top talkers get reported to the boss. Part 5 of 5

Communications Firm Builds Internal Social Network with SharePoint and RSS From NewsGator

The CIO of Universal McCann is connecting 60 disparate offices worldwide with a more unified culture using SharePoint 2007 along with Social Sites, social networking profiles technology from NewsGator, an RSS vendor. The key: forget about trying to c

Testing Service-Oriented Architectures: A Primer for the Real World

Along with the benefits of an interconnected system come spiraling costs if the system runs out of control. When undertaking SOA, testing is a necessary form of risk-management u2014 and Matt Heusser describes how to do it well.

New Household Robot Promises to Make Virtual Visits Easy

iRobot's ConnectR, a new robot in beta testing, allows you to be in (almost) two places at once.

Tight Budgets? Try Open Source SOA!

So you think you don't have the money to find out if SOA can save you money? Test the waters with Open Source SOA. You might find out that Open Source is what you've needed all along.

The “High-Tech Olympics,” Security Holes, IT Job Dissatisfaction and More

This issue of Trendlines from the 8/01/08 issue of CIO magazine covers the latest technology news including why Endpoint security holes are problem, charitable opportunities for IT workers, advancement in PC data theft and the push for Broadband acro

The Big Shift

It's inevitable that America will lose its technology edge

We’re Listening

Because customer feedback is a powerful thing

5 Reasons Why a Developer Might Want to Become a CIO

The CIO job comes with lots of money and lots of perks. But would a software developer ever be willing to cash in his integrity and passion for programming to become a corporate wonk? Here are five compelling reasons why developers might do so.

8 Reasons Why a Developer Would NEVER Want To Be a CIO

Sure, CIOs earn lots of money and don't have to worry about their job getting shipped off to India, but they do have to deal with a lot of crap software developers wouldn't ever want to touch. Here are eight reasons why developers would rat

Save Money With PC Power Management

PC power management software helped Washington Mutual cut electricity use for a projected $3 million in savings. Part 4 of 5

It’s the company’s investment culture. Always was.

HP and EDS: Let the Layoffs Begin? (updates in the comments)

Enterprise Architecture: Tigers with Toolboxes

Enterprise Web 2.0 Adoption Still Growing, McKinsey Report Says

The adoption of enterprise Web 2.0 technologies, often referred to as Enterprise 2.0, has grown since last year, an annual McKinsey report says. But barriers remain, including justifying a return on investment to executives who allocate the money for

Tackling Software Security: An Increasing Threat

Addressing application security solely as an operational issue doesn't work. Attackers are increasingly motivated by financial gain and have been learning how to exploit software for several decades. The same is not true for software engineers,

7 Ways to Improve Your Software Release Management

Two consultants helped turn around the release management of a major U.K. telecommunications provider. They share their experience in turning around deployment processes and their top tips for improving your software releases.

Not using “best” VMware features is not just foolish, but expensive

The VMotion debate continues: If you're not using enhancement tools such as VMware's vMotion, SVMotion, HA and DRS, you're increasing your costs and level of risk.

Asset Management Tools Root Out Unneeded Applications, Hardware

The Defense Department saved money and improved security by getting tough on unneeded, unsanctioned, unsupported software and hardware. Part 3 of 5

Microsoft’s Stupid Vista Trick: Windows Mojave

Understanding Zoho, the Quiet Company Taking on Google and Microsoft

Zoho, a software company started in 2005, has built applications that compete with Google and even Microsoft. The vendor believes it can stay in the game by having a quick development cycle that adds new features to their products faster than the big

SOA Helps Hire a Hero Give Returning Veterans a Fighting Chance to Find Work

A nonprofit organization uses SOA to knit together resources from SaaS vendors and XAware to match military veterans with employment opportunities.