Microsoft’s tablet finally surfaced yesterday. I was discussing it with my son and he said the whole thing reminded of the movie The Sixth Sense, which Microsoft playing the Bruce Willis part. They’re walking around, wondering what’s going on, trying to solve people’s problems and don’t realize they’re dead. People’s computing problems are directly attributable to them, not being alive and aware of how the world now works.

So I looked at the press event and the product video, and I’m trying to figure out why people are excited. Ok, yes, there’s another tablet offering out there, and it’s from a company who in theory can go toe-to-toe with Apple in this space, or sell at a loss for a decade if not (see Xbox profits and marketshare).

And it’s a Windows offering for those who’ve been wanting …

Having read JP Rangaswami’s argument against private clouds (and the obvious promoting of his version of cloud) I have only to say that he’s looking for oranges in an apple tree. His entire premise is based on the idea that enterprises are wholly concerned with cost and sharing risk when that can’t be farther from the truth. 

Yes, cost is indeed a factor, as is sharing risk, but a bigger and more important factor facing the enterprise today is agility and flexibility…something that monolithic leviathan-like enterprise IT systems of today definitely are not.

He then jumps from cost to social enterprise as if there is a causal relationship there when, in fact, they are two separate discussions. I don’t doubt that if you are a consumer (not just customer) facing organization, it’s best to get on that social enterprise bandwagon, but if your main …

A recent post on the Google Green Blog has revealed that the US General Services Administration saved $285,000 in energy consumption after switching to cloud based apps.

Even though most IT decision makers would freely want to admit they’re doing their bit for the environment by migrating to the cloud, the most prominent reason companies migrate would be convenience and, above all, money.

But Google claims the cloud is more energy efficient than people think, and Urs Hoelzle, Google senior vice president for technical infrastructure, explains why.

The reason moving to the cloud would be both cost and energy efficient, Hoelzle notes, is that servers’ energy is vastly reduced. As the cloud-based solution has fewer servers at better optimisation, the energy levels are decreased.

Google found that, using Google Apps, organisations could decrease their energy costs by anything from 65% to 85% on average.

But what energy sources …

The cost of protecting ourselves against cybercrime can far outweigh the cost of the threat itself, according to a new study led by computer scientists at The University of Cambridge.

At the behest of the UK Ministry of Defence, the research team compiled the first estimate of direct, indirect and defence costs of different types of cybercrime.

The report’s authors, which included experts from Cambridge University, working with colleagues in Germany, the Netherlands, the USA and UK, concluded that Governments should spend less trying to anticipate online crime, and more trying to actively pursue and prosecute its perpetrators.

“Advances in information technology are moving many social and economic interactions, such as fraud or forgery, from the physical worlds to cyberspace,” said lead author Ross Anderson, Professor of Security Engineering at the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory.

“As countries scramble to invest in security to minimise cyber-risks, governments want …

Users are making it too easy for hackers.

If we take a closer look at the 6.5 million hashed LinkedIn passwords that leaked we find a large swathe of the user population are ignoring warnings of overly simplistic and obvious passwords. Would you believe the most common word or phrase found in a 160k sampling of the list was “link”?

And would you further shake your head in disbelief that “1234” and “12345” followed close behind. Rounding out the top 10 were “work,” “god,” “job,” “angel,” “the,” “ilove,” and “sex.”

More so than Facebook, LinkedIn is the social media of choice for business. So it is likely to be used by the users in your enterprise as part of their security-as-a-service (SaaS) profile. This makes their problem your problem.

If we learn anything from this debacle, it is that password management should be a priority for any organisation that …

Let’s discuss a couple of the heavyweight C words in the IT Sector: cloud and customer relationship management (CRM).

What do they have in common?

Well they have both certainly provoked a lot of press coverage and airtime; both have driven large brand name vendors to jump in with big investment, acquisitions and marketing hype; both have helped drive each other’s growth and both certainly have had customers debating what and when they should elect to use such a solution.

CRM has been a hyped acronym for many years and can mean many things to many people. Many debates abound in this area from if it is the correct terminology to describe what its used for, to how much does it really cost, to what ROI can really be achieved.

The fundamentals are though that a way to manage customer information, share it securely, track customer interactions and …

Networking firm Cisco has introduced its Cloud Connected Solution, a new application that has been designed in order to allow users to connect securely to cloud services.

It will deliver cloud-enabling routing and wide area network (WAN) optimisation platforms as well as Cloud Connector software and services.

The application is also designed to enable organisations to implement cloud computing and accelerate the deployment of cloud services whilst delivering an optimal user experience.

New software has also been launched with the product application called Cloud Connectors. This is embedded in the Cisco Integrated Services Router (ISR) G2 platform along with services that are hoped will improve performance, security and availability of cloud applications.

Cloud Connectors has an open architecture which will help service providers develop third-party Cloud Connectors to deliver differentiated services to their customers.

Furthermore, the new app will feature Cisco WAAS 5.0 with AppNav which virtualises WAN optimisation …

The specifics of Dell’s major cloud expansion have been revealed, with their infrastructure as a service (IaaS) enterprise cloud to arrive in Europe by August 31.

The platform is currently undergoing a trial in the US and Canada, with Dell Cloud aligning to VMWare’s vCloud Datacenter Service for the platform.

As reported by CloudTech last year, the service will help provide hosted infrastructure and data platforms, alongside managing and securing data, and will be available in both public and hybrid cloud systems.

Dell claims that their public cloud will be completely secure, citing the active monitoring from SecureWorks, data encryption services from TrendMicro and “multiple layers” of security in Dell centres.

The Texas-based company is adding their considerable weight to the IaaS platform after many big companies are trying to influence the expansion.

Oracle was the latest company to announce a public cloud offering just last week.

Ricky …

Before signing any cloud computing contract, or indeed, renewing his on-premise IT agreement, the CIO should sit down with his CFO to clearly identify and understand the total cost of the IT department to the business, and compare his current solution to a cloud-based alternative. And to complete this cost justification process, the CIO must look at each of the following areas:

The IT Crowd

Whilst a company’s employees are its biggest asset, they are also its biggest cost. And if a business employs a five-strong IT team, when arguably only two are needed, the remuneration required to pay the other three members of staff is simply money down the drain. Generally speaking, up until now, the IT department’s sole responsibility has been to maintain the organisation’s infrastructure. And whether that be to make sure all of the employees’ desktops are running or to resolve any downtime …

Before signing any cloud computing contract, or indeed, renewing his on-premise IT agreement, the CIO should sit down with his CFO to clearly identify and understand the total cost of the IT department to the business, and compare his current solution to a cloud-based alternative. And to complete this cost justification process, the CIO must look at each of the following areas:

The IT Crowd

Whilst a company’s employees are its biggest asset, they are also its biggest cost. And if a business employs a five-strong IT team, when arguably only two are needed, the remuneration required to pay the other three members of staff is simply money down the drain. Generally speaking, up until now, the IT department’s sole responsibility has been to maintain the organisation’s infrastructure. And whether that be to make sure all of the employees’ desktops are running or to resolve any downtime …