Applications used to be so simple, some self-contained code linked with a few system libraries that accessed local data: a distinct bundle where everything required was on a single machine. Client-server software complicated things a bit, but the demarcation was clean and the hub-spoke design pattern straightforward. No longer. Apps are now composite mashups, often mixing custom and… Read More »
A version of this article, with complete coverage of branch office WAN appliances, use cases and recommendations is available this Channel Partners report. With the pressure on IT to deliver new services without bigger budgets, organizations large and small are under pressure to cut costs and increase efficiency while simultaneously improving application performance and security. It’s a tall… Read More »
Never underestimate a buzzword’s power to frame the discussion. As I recently discussed, the term bimodal IT has captured the imagination and polemical energy of technology commentators and like many IT discussions in the age of 140-character commentary, it often degenerates into polarized, all-or-nothing positions. Using a variant of the classic reductio ad absurdum strategy, critiques of bimodal IT… Read More »
IT analysts are like fashion designers, always searching for something new, even if that means recycling age-old concepts in new terminology. Yet the creative linguistics can often mask more important truths about effectively building and operating IT services. Like successful fashionistas, IT leaders need to stay on top of the latest trends if only to be prepared when… Read More »
Intel isn’t a company known for being a spendthrift, but it just spent more on Altera than the combined total for all previous acquisitions. Intel isn’t know for placing big bets on anything other than its own R&D and fabs. It’s acquisition strategy has been more like Apple’s, surgical buys and acqui-hires designed to fill defined technology gaps. Unlike HP,… Read More »
A version of this article appeared on TechTarget SearchSOA as EMC builds for cloud and next-generation applications EMC World is the company’s traditional venue for major announcements, but this year the company’s premier event for customers, partners, analysts and journalists included more than just a laundry list of product updates. Sure, there was plenty of new hardware, like a… Read More »
Commodification promised to kill old tech stalwarts like Cisco, EMC and Oracle as standardized, mass produced hardware paired with open source software undermined their high-margin businesses. However the road to irrelevance was detoured by an instinctive response: adapt or die. Each company’s resulting metamorphosis from peddling boxes to building full stack IT systems has been both predictable and impressive. Predictable… Read More »
It’s a tiresome routine. Every quarter Wall Street analysts calibrate their earnings estimates for Intel Intel, Microsoft Microsoft, Micron and other ‘old tech’ companies according to the latest IDC and Gartner Gartner PC sales figures. PC sales down? Intel and Microsoft are sure to take a beating. It’s as if these are still monolithic businesses stuck in 1995.… Read More »
Disruptive technologies are a time-tested means of upending the business environment. Remember Western Union? No, not the money order company, but the one that lost its communication empire to Bell Telephone. How about former business giants like Kodak, Motorola, WorldCom and most recently, Radio Shack, that once dominated their field and are no longer with us. All were undone by… Read More »
The news from IBM, which has been uniformly grim for years, gives the impression of a venerable tech giant in a death spiral. I don’t succumb to such fatalism and believe Big Blue’s problems aren’t terminal, indeed my next column will offer suggestions for how it can adapt to the new world order of cloud IT. Still, there’s no denying… Read More »