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Historically, users viewed IT departments as the people who ran the basic infrastructure "plumbing," were inflexible when it came to doing anything new, and generally far more of an inhibitor to the business than an enabler. That take was at least middling unfair in most cases, but it was grounded in certain realities.

For most organizations, IT was primarily focused on a fairly common--if hardly standardized--set of tasks. Functions like enterprise resource planning, financials, human resources, and e-mail all had to work. But they weren't something that especially advantaged the organization most of the time. Yes, an … Read more

It's hard to strike the right balance in the technology business between change that's too fast or too slow--in part because different customers prefer different paces. To try to better match those preferences, Google Apps now will come in two varieties.

The "rapid release" track will get new technology into customers' hands as soon as it's passed quality-assurance testing. The "scheduled release" track will issue updates once a week, with at least a week's notice to let administrators learn about the upcoming changes, Google announced today.

The dual-track approach applies to Gmail, … Read more

Spiceworks is widely regarded as one of the top IT tools on the planet, offering network management and monitoring, a user helpdesk, equipment inventory, and lots more--all absolutely free.

Just one problem: it's not an especially mobile-friendly solution. For the IT administrator who's constantly on the move (is there any other kind?), the only option for staying connected to Spiceworks is schlepping a laptop.

Until now. Spiceworks for iPhone shrinks the software to pocket size, giving IT managers and admins everything they need for mobile network management.

For example, the app offers remote network monitoring, showing the status … Read more

The ubiquitous and controversial Demand Media has acquired CoverItLive, a live-blogging tool that lots of publishers--including CNET--use for hosting live chat events and covering news in real time.

Demand Media, which grew extraordinarily fast and recently went public, is best known as a freelancer clearinghouse for the production of search-engine-friendly content on sites like eHow (how-to tutorials) and Livestrong.com (health advice). The company has been hit with allegations that the majority of its content is cheap, low-quality, and pollutes search results--that is, that it's a "content farm"--something it understandably denies.

CoverItLive, typically used to quickly … Read more

The big industry event about virtualization is VMworld, usually held in late Summer / early Fall. You don't have to wait for VMware's conference, however, to find yourself in VM World. We now live in it, every day.

It's really quite amazing how quickly virtualization has swept through, and become ensconced in, IT. Data centers have--for decades--been famously conservative when it comes to introducing changes that might threaten to disrupt production applications. For years, whenever we'd ask operationally focused IT managers about introducing new control software--for workload management, service provisioning, automated orchestration, and so on--we always heard … Read more

The IT market staged a healthy rebound last year, with global spending on IT products and services rising 8 percent from 2009 to more than $1.5 trillion, according to IDC's Worldwide Black Book report out today.

The market research firm's 2010 numbers showed the fastest growth rate for the IT industry since 2007.

Factoring in the telecommunications segment, the overall ICT (information and communications technology) market saw spending climb to almost $3 trillion, up 6 percent from 2009. Growth was driven by the need and ability among businesses to finally spend money to refresh their hardware and … Read more

Research In Motion will soon debut software that can segregate the personal from the professional.

Set to launch in two months, the BlackBerry Balance software will be able to separate personal e-mail, apps, and other content from those used on the job, Jeff McDowell, RIM's senior vice president for business and platform marketing, said in a Reuters interview published yesterday.

The goal behind the software is to let BlackBerry owners rely on a single smartphone, so they can use the same device for business and social reasons. IT administrators--concerned about personal devices tapping into their networks--will also be able … Read more

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday launched the Urban Technology Innovation Center, an initiative to test ways to improve building efficiency.

The center is a partnership among the city, universities, and businesses that aims to identify effective green building technologies. A location has not yet been chosen, but Columbia University, City University of New York, and Polytechnic Institute of New York University will be involved.

It will be funded by $250,000 from the New York City Economic Development Corp., and the three universities will provide money in kind. The group is also seeking funding through memberships.

IBM will … Read more

I was recently asked to help fix a high-visibility Web site that was performing poorly. I'd like to share some of the lessons--not learned, but reinforced--by the experience.

Fix the problem, not the blame. "We're in trouble! Help!" calls are fraught with embarrassment. Who, after all, wants to admit they have a problem? Many feel they "should" be able to "handle it ourselves," without sending up an emergency flare or asking for assistance. This latest was a straightforward "we can't get decent performance, and it's getting critical!" situation. … Read more