Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made an excellent impression last week, but at Build he’ll need greater than rhetoric to reconcile new cross-platform tactics with Windows’ future. Microsoft In 2013: 7 Lessons Learned (Click image for larger view and for slideshow.) Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s tenure got off to an auspicious start last week when he introduced native Office apps for the iPad. But with the Microsoft Build conference for developers kicking off this week, Nadella could have time neither to savor his victory nor to ease into the subsequent challenge. Ironically, Nadella faces pressure since the iPad apps had been so well received. Despite being in any case two years overdue, the goods represent a brand new tablet productivity standard. But additionally they represent a possible death blow to the single advantage Windows tablets had over iPad: running Microsoft Office. The iPad Office apps also indicate an accelerating shift far from Windows because the center of Microsoft’s strategy, even — as Windows XP’s remarkable longevity... Read More »

We’ve singled out 20 InformationWeek Elite 100 winners whose IT projects have transformed their businesses. Use them to inspire creativity and advance your plans. This is InformationWeek’s 26th year ranking US companies that use technology in innovative ways. This time the popularity is much more special because we’ve narrowed the collection of honorees from 500 to 100; we now call our ranking the InformationWeek Elite 100. The creativity represented by this year’s 100 organizations has not narrowed, though. An overriding theme of their accomplishments: innovative use of giant data. Out of this elite 100 we’ve chosen 20 of the most convenient ideas to give during this slideshow. Our list shows companies putting data analytics into action across a large range of industries. If these companies are any indication, in 2014 and within the years that follow business decisions should be more data-driven, data could be more visual and more mobile, more medical data may be made accessible to assist save lives, and more equipment and... Read More »

Sony sees Digital Paper, to ship in May, to be able to get paper-based processes out of legal, education, and government organizations. Sony showed off Digital Paper, a 13.3″ tablet display that uses e-ink technology to render text and graphics, last week on the American Bar Association Techshow in Chicago. E-ink displays had been eclipsed within the tablet market by LCD displays, the technology utilized in Apple’s iPad and Google’s Nexus tablet, but there’s still demand for alternative display technologies. Amazon bought Liquavista last year to advance its Kindle hardware, and Qualcomm was working with its Mirasol technology. These alternative display technologies are typically cheaper to provide, more energy efficient, and more readable in direct sunlight. They are not great for games, however. Sony sees Digital Paper to be able to attract business customers who work in paper-intensive environments, but desire to move toward online workflows and business processes. [Intend to make your existing tablet more productive? See Microsoft Office For iPad: 7 Questions Answered.]... Read More »

Microsoft amends its terms of service to prevent peeking into customers’ emails, even though it suspects they’re stealing from the corporate. Windows XP Game Over: 9 Upgrade Options (Click image for larger view and slideshow.) Microsoft said this can honor its privacy commitments to its customers, even those it suspects can be thieves. In a blog post Friday, Microsoft executive VP and general counsel Brad Smith said that the corporate has reflected at the criticism it received over the way it handled a 2012 case wherein its investigators accessed the Hotmail account of a blogger purported to have received stolen Windows code from a disgruntled employee. Due to internal conversations and input from advocacy groups, Microsoft has decided that its privacy promises also needs to be binding by itself employees and agents. “Effective immediately, if we receive information indicating that somebody is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property from Microsoft, we can’t inspect a customer’s private content ourselves. Instead, we... Read More »

Social networks make millions off your data, but they do not want to know everything. Here’s a way to clear your search history from three top sites. LinkedIn Tips: 10 Steps To a much better Profile (Click image for larger view and slideshow.) Social networks are becoming an essential component of our online lives: They’re how we stay connected to friends, what percentage folks find new job opportunities, and the way more people not sleep to this point on news. And if you are probably wary about how much personal information you share, social networks know more about you than you think that. From the instant you subscribe to a social networking account, the location collects droves of knowledge about you: your birthday, email address, age, browsing habits, likes, dislikes, and your interests, for instance. Some sites track the videos you’ve watched, location from where you last logged on, or even your search history. That, for sure, is the pricetag you pay for using free... Read More »