October 27, 2012

Reducing Uncertainty in the Financial Evaluation of Technology Projects
It's not uncommon for new technology projects to have little short-term impact, while having a significant effect on long-term strategic goals. Due to the discounting of these long-term benefits, they become less significant in an economic evaluation. For example, how could Apple have known the future value of the iPad when it was in development? This uncertainty poses a major problem to funding projects that don't support current product lines or markets.


Amazon Outage, Complexity and Interdependence
Throughout the day, Amazon had availability, performance and connectivity issues with most services on one of their datacenters or, as they call them, availability zones. While some people may still take this opportunity to declaim the dangers and issues with cloud computing, it should be a well-known fact that cloud services suffer failures and outages.


Microsoft starts $40 Windows 8 upgrade sales
Microsoft will sell the Windows 8 Pro upgrade at the discounted price until Jan. 31, 2013. It's not entirely clear what the price will be after the offer expires, but several online retailers selling the $69.99 boxed copy show that price as marked down from a regular price of $199.99.


It's happening: Hadoop and SQL worlds are converging
 The common thread of announcements is essentially, “We know that Hadoop is not known for performance, but we’re getting better at it, and we’re going to make it look more like SQL.” In essence, Hadoop and SQL worlds are converging, and you’re going to be able to perform interactive BI analytics on it.


Can Business Embed IT?
Organizations and their IT departments are struggling to keep pace with evolving business environments that have now added social, mobile, cloud and analytic forces to the competitive toolset. At Forrester Research’s latest Orlando conference, Kyle McNabb, VP and practice leader for application development and delivery, sat down to discuss how business outcomes – not technology – will prescribe the structures and tactics of IT support going forward.


The High Costs of Securing Identities: How to Fix the Problem Using the Cloud
The cloud serves as that mechanism to enable configuring as opposed to programmer-driven customization to provide each and every industry with a predictable cost, a predictable path (with a real light at the end of the tunnel!) and a predictable result for solving identity management problems.


Does the Rise of the CMO Threaten CIOs?
"Ten years ago, marketing was always at the bottom of IT's to-do list," says Kristin Hambelton, vice president of Marketing for Neolane , a marketing technology provider. "IT wasn't discriminating against marketing, but IT usually has five or 10 projects going at any one time, and marketing was always at the bottom of the list." As a result, marketing pros got tired of waiting and sidestepped IT.


Leadership Development - Effectively Influencing Decision Makers
The 11 guidelines listed below are intended to help you do a better job of influencing decision-makers. In some cases, these decision-makers may be immediate or upper managers—in other cases they may be peers or cross-organizational colleagues.


Google should worry less about iOS and more about Windows 8 tablets
Have you used a Windows 8 tablet yet? If Google wants enterprise traction for Android, it has more to learn from these devices than it does from iPhones and iPads.



Quotes for the day:

"A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune." -- Author Unknown

"Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming" -- John Wooden

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