February 05, 2013

Analysis: Microsoft To Shift Its Focus to Tablets and the Cloud
Microsoft is responding to the mobile threat posed by Android and iOS devices by putting its Windows 8 and Windows RT operating systems on tablets, with the Microsoft Surface Windows 8 Pro device expected to arrive on Feb. 9. The company is also revving up a faster software release cadence, especially for its Office 365 cloud-enabled products.


Busting the Top 5 Myths of Cloud-Based Authentication
Analysts predict that more than 50% of enterprises will choose cloud-based services as the delivery option for new or refreshed user authentication implementations within the next few years. However, as with many ground-breaking innovations, this trend has also brought about some common myths. During this live webinar you will hear Jason Hart, VP Cloud Solutions, de-mystify the top 5 most common myths about migrating to cloud-based authentication


SSD onslaught: Hard drives poised for double-digit revenue drop
HDDs overall will maintain market dominance because of their cost advantage over SSDs, particularly when higher densities are involved and dollars per gigabyte are calculated, iSuppli said. HDD costs and pricing are significantly lower than SSDs. And, the average selling price for HDDs is expected to decline further 7% this year.


NextGen CIO mentor Q&A: Henry Shiner
Starting out as a McDonald's crew member at Yagoona, New South Wales, then moving on via an honours degree in chemical engineering and several senior business management gigs, Henry Shiner "came home" to McDonald's ANZ in 2007 as VP/CIO. In this video, Shiner--a mentor in ZDNet's NextGen CIO program--shares his passions for business, mentoring McDonalds' staff, cooking, and for exploiting technology to improve the McDonalds customer experience.


Aligning a cloud computing project with your enterprise mission
Companies adopting a cloud model make the mistake of opting for a vendor with the lowest price for their chosen type of cloud service. This is a big mistake; an enterprise needs to align its mission with the best cloud service provider, taking into account three aspects of the provider's offering: software, application availability and data requirements.


Consumerization of IT is Bigger Than Mobile
One of the challenges that IT faces today is the ability to control departments inside the organizations from going to Amazon-like providers, swiping their cards and getting instant access to a virtual machine that they can then use for whatever business initiative they have. When told not to do that, they ask for a similar service from IT, one that is as quick, effective and seamless, one which IT cannot deliver today.


Implementing a Generic Object Pool in .NET
Object pools are everywhere. Every database provider have its own ConnectionPool for managing and reusing connections, .NET framework is provided with a robust built-in ThreadPool for managing and reusing threads, sometimes a Memory Pool for buffers is used to save allocations, and the list goes on. Whenever a part of an application performance is bound to its resources, specifically creating and destroying them, Object pool can offer a significant performance boost.


Operational Intelligence – Is This the End Game for Big Data?
You could say that for the past 20 years we talked the data analytics talk but didn’t really walk the data analytics walk. It isn’t that companies didn’t do data analytics; they did. Many people were employed as data analysts or used data analyst tools as part of their job. In truth though, it wasn’t until Google that we had a company run by data analytics. And let’s not kid ourselves on this: intelligent business innovation drove much of what Google did, but data analytics drove a good deal of their activity and innovation.


Who is the Decision Coach on Your Business Team?
The best leaders I’ve worked with and for are not only good decision-makers, they are effective decision-coaches. They understand the importance of teaching their teams how to navigate the pitfalls and complexities of decision-making in pursuit of the best results for the organization. ... At the end of the day, we are all evaluated on the efficacy of our decisions and those of our teams. Good managers and leaders deliberately teach their teams to navigate this complex, trap-filled environment in pursuit of the right decisions and ever improving outcomes.


Outsourcing management "as a service"
The companies that succeeded had invested in building a business-led strategy, strong governance, investments in mature outsourcing competencies, and dedicated outsourcing management organisation (Program Management Office, PMO). Most importantly, they recognised outsourcing management as a key differentiator and core competence.



Quote for the day:

"To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day." -- Laozi, Chinese philosopher

No comments:

Post a Comment