10 IT Leaders To Follow On Twitter Whose world is that this anyway? It’s that point again, the feared close race of superpowers, and not using a clear winner in sight. Where is a degree-headed conservative person imagined to lay his loyalties, fortunes and favors? This isn’t politics I speak of, but document file storage — the exact same fight that years ago gave rise to the mainframe, then personal computers, then kilo-, mega-, giga-, tera- and the scary petabyte. The creation, use, storage, retrieval and hopefully destruction of the straightforward written word has become a driver of greater than just an economy, it has transformed the very fabric of society. Now anyone with access to a pc, smartphone, etc. can put fingers to keys and start the creation process, ignorant of the magnitude of burden they’re placing at the IT industry. Dropbox, Box, Amazon Web Services, Hightail (formerly referred to as YouSendIt) and the plethora of systems Microsoft would have us learn, purchase, secure... Read More »

Wall Street talks VMware down, key executives exit and industry pundits continue to pile at the criticism. But VMware can get better from this down cycle, if it specializes in its identity as a supplier of fundamental data center software. EvercoreWealth Management analyst Kirk Materne recently downgraded VMware’s target stock price from $85 to $75 due to uncertainty over VMware’s ability to compete with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and OpenStack. It wasn’t see you later ago that VMware posted a value of $103. In a year when technology stocks are generally up, VMware is down 25%. Comments inside the general press on VMware’s future also are more skeptical, after they aren’t downright dubious, including this recent GigaOm article, “VMware’s Hot Seat Getting Hotter By The Minute.” i am not resistant to the signs that spur these comments. But i will say, without claim to omniscience, that they are potentially overwrought. The view behind lots of them is that lower-priced substitutes for VMware at the... Read More »

IBM focuses like a laser beam on delivering consistent earnings, and the corporate didn’t disappoint on Wednesday when it reported financial results for the second one quarter resulted in June. What it didn’t have the capacity to do was solve uncertainties in regards to the company’s future growth engines, because it spending continues to shift toward cloud computing and faraway from important categories for IBM. For the 3 months ended June 30, IBM reported a year-over-year revenue decline of three% to $24.9 billion. Nevertheless, the corporate managed to ring up an 8% non-GAAP increase in quarterly earnings. It even raised revenue expectations for the total year by 20 cents. At the beginning blush, the earnings figures were pleasing to investors, but “all in” data calculated according to generally accepted accounting practices included a $1 billion “workforce rebalancing” charge that sent quarterly earnings per share down 13% year over year. Workforce rebalancing is a euphemism for layoffs pursued most aggressively in Europe and in addition in... Read More »

VMware Vs. Microsoft: 8 Cloud Battle Lines Owen Rogers isn’t exactly a household name, but his recent report for 451 Research has drawn a lot of comment. He tried to ascertain the basic economics at work in cloud computing in a July 8 piece titled: “Commoditization Brings Transformation: Cloud Economics Will Drive Change, Whoever You’re.” If you’ll notice, that title isn’t full of judgments in regards to the ultimate result. But if you tell people who change is coming, there’s prone to be multiple interpretation that it will be bad. Three days later, Forbes’ contributor Joe McKendrick joined the discussion under the headline, “Cloud Computing Market May Become an Oligopoly of High-Volume Vendors.” My InformationWeek colleague Kurt Marko added his analysis July 11, “Inside the Cloud, Goliaths Generally Thump David. Sorry Underdogs,” citing the various explanation why big vendors will overwhelm small ones inside the cloud. All of here’s good discussion and echoes my very own concern that cloud computing will crumple to the pattern... Read More »

I were fortunate to serve in a variety of technology leadership positions with local, state and federal governments. My last job was CIO of the U.S. Department of Transportation, where I had oversight of its entire IT portfolio, including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). With an annual budget of greater than $3 billion, DOT’s was the sixth-largest IT budget within the federal government. In this tenure of greater than 15 years within the public sector, i used to be also fortunate to work and learn from the very best (and worst) technology executives within the government, all of whom taught me some valuable lessons that can be as useful for up-and-coming government CIOs as they’re for IT executives considering a jump into the general public sector. Listed here are my observations and suggestions at the five habits of powerful government technology executives. 1. Follow The Legislative/Regulatory Environment Effective government technology executives are fully tuned in to the happenings of their local boards, state assemblies or... Read More »