Many years ago my sister Mary taught me a valuable lesson. At the time she and her husband lived in a very small apartment. But each time I visited her I was amazed by how neat everything was. There were no overflowing bookshelves, no overstuffed closets and pantries, and none of the usual clutter of [...]
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Note: This article is intended for a business audience. For a technical explanation of cloud computing, see the sidebar below the business article. To the non-technical among us, “cloud computing” may sound like something vague and amorphous. After all, it’s a cloud, right? So that means it’s something that’s insubstantial, floating in the sky. If [...]
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The word “scalable” has been used in IT for over forty years. IBM used the word when they first talked about their 360 series of mainframe computers in the 1960′s. Since that time scalability has been a consideration in every aspect of computing: mainframes, minis, personal computers, servers, networks, proprietary systems, open systems, even smartphones. [...]
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Suppose your IT organization is in the market for a new IT product (or service, but I’ll use the word “product” here to simplify the discussion). It could be a computer, network device or other hardware item, or it could be a software package or SaaS (software as a service). Regardless of what you’re looking [...]
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Every IT organization needs skilled architects who are experienced in designing systems, databases, networks and user interfaces. In this article I’ll give you 10 reasons. 1. Architecture is critically important to IT. Let’s start with a definition. In my book, Boiling the IT Frog, I explain the IT use of the word “architecture” this way: For [...]
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A recent article in ComputerWorld by Curt Monash reminded me of the poem about the Blind Men and the Elephant. The Computerworld article talked about different points of view from leading technology vendors. According to the article, Oracle and IBM view IT as data-centric, Microsoft views IT as people-centric, and SAP views IT as business-process-centric. [...]
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What is this thing called “acquisition due diligence”, and how does due diligence for information technology differ from any other kind of acquisition due diligence? These questions will be answered in this white paper which describes the three IT surprises that you want to avoid. Did you know that most people doing IT due diligence [...]
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