Some industry watchers say the virtualization wave is almost done, but I disagree. Some observers say the virtualization wave is almost over because it’s reached the 40%-50% of applications which can be agreeable to migration into virtual machines. I disagree. i feel virtualization still has far to head and should bring many changes in 2014. Virtualization is getting so complicated and deeply entrenched inside the datacenter that, in time, the virtualization administrator will discover a counterpart in another new role: virtual machine analytics or intelligent virtual system management. Call it what you will want, it is the art of using knowledge about running virtualized systems to revamp, reconfigure, and redeploy those systems in a method that utilizes resources more efficiently. The idea of finding data buried in running systems to assist IT do its job better is scarcely new. In 2012, it was evident in reported conversations with PayPal CTO James Barresse and Microsoft’s Mike Neil, former manager of virtualization and now Azure cloud manager.... Read More »

Smartphone Theft Protection Act will require cellphone makers to incorporate the way to disable communications devices remotely to discourage theft. Android Security: 8 Signs Hackers Own Your Smartphone (click image for larger view) A week after California State Senator Mark Leno (D-CA) proposed a bill requiring a kill switch for smartphones sold within the state, federal lawmakers have recommend an identical bill. On Thursday, US Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) introduced national legislation to require how to disable smartphones remotely. The goal is to discourage theft and protect consumers, but this defense against thieves might include greater vulnerability to hackers, in step with a mobile industry trade group. Certainly, cell phone theft is a significant problem. Cellular phone thefts account for 30% to 40% of all robberies in major cities nationwide, in step with the FCC, and that figure is asserted to be as high as 50% in markets like San Francisco. Per Consumer Reports, 1.6... Read More »

Are you about to select a large data platform? Keep in mind that SQL isn’t the best use of Hadoop. Our recent 16 Top Big Data Analytics Platforms collection has generated a great deal of interest and lots of comments and questions. To answer the latter, we jumped on the chance to do a Google+ Hangout with the editors of sister UBM website AllAnalytics so shall we go deeper at the topic. The questions through the discussion (see video interview below) covered a number of the most commonly asked questions posted below our slide show — 21 comments and counting at this writing. How do you define big data analytics platforms or “big data” for that matter? What makes these “top” vendors, and are any of those platforms accessible to midmarket companies? [ Watch InformationWeek’s Doug Henschen discuss 16 Top Big Data Analytics Platforms with the editors of AllAnalytics (below). ] I elaborate on these types of topics, but some new questions from AllAnalytics editors... Read More »

Deputy CIO Sonny Hashmi named acting CIO of General Services Administration. Most Wasteful Government IT Projects Of 2013 (click image for larger view and for slideshow) After greater than a decade on the General Services Administration, CIO Casey Coleman is leaving for the non-public sector, joining AT&T Government Solutions as an executive VP for client relations. Sonny Hashmi, GSA’s deputy CIO, will function acting CIO. “Advances in cloud, mobility, big data, and security present federal organizations with a brand new world of opportunities,” Coleman said in an announcement about her decision to go back to the non-public sector. “Casey is celebrated and revered throughout the federal technology sector as a real leader,” said Kay Kapoor, president of AT&T Government Solutions, praising Coleman’s “visionary leadership, technological know-how, and public sector expertise.” During her tenure at GSA, Coleman led the government’s first migration to the cloud, using the Google Apps for presidency platform for email and collaboration. The move saved GSA greater than $15 million over five... Read More »

We’re abandoning the old, one-way publishing model of economic technology journalism and pioneering an approach that emphasizes community and true multiway discourse. Thanks to digital innovation, our media industry has undergone a generation’s worth of upheaval over the last five years. We bet your industry has too. Do not get too comfortable: The pace of change is purely accelerating. As digital technologies enhance products, change customer consumption habits, disintermediate supply-chain players, help buyers and sellers make more informed, data-based decisions, and otherwise overturn the established order, every company is (or can be) sweating who its next disruptive competitors could be. Which competitor is FedEx most worried about? UPS, obviously, but it’s keeping a miles closer eye nowadays on considered one of its biggest partners, Amazon.com, as Amazon becomes more of a business services and logistics provider. And guess who just beat out old nobody-got-fired-for-choosing-IBM for a prized CIA cloud computing contract? Amazon. Cablevision CEO James Dolan, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in... Read More »