Latest on IBM: News, Features, Opinions and More  Why one insurance company ditched its own hardware- for a cloud -based SAN
Why do some enterprise managers decide to brave their way into the new and unknown of cloud-based services? Sometimes it's simply because the old technology just isn't working out that well anymore. Oracle stakes claim in R with Advanced Analytics launch
Oracle is hoping to carve out a prominent place in the world of R, the open-source statistical modeling language with roots in academia but an increasingly high profile in enterprise IT shops. It announced a new Advanced Analytics product on Wednesday that ties R to its database and family of software-hardware appliances. Greenpeace scorecard documents greener enterprise offerings
Technology companies are not just making their products less carbon-intensive; they are also increasingly designing products to improve energy efficiency in the industries that they serve, according to the latest in a series of Greenpeace ratings of the sector's energy practices. IBM boosts flagship array speeds by 3X with SSD caching
Enhancements to IBM's XIV Storage System include an SSD caching option that can increase system performance by up to three times. IBM buys Worklight for mobile software platform
IBM on Tuesday announced plans to buy Worklight, a move that will give it a range of cross-platform mobile application development technologies. Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter, were not disclosed. 2012: The year storage becomes a celebrity
This promises to be a break-out year for storage technology with the use of more NAND flash in devices and smarter storage that can be tailored to applications. Microsoft set to launch SQL Server 2012 on March 7
Microsoft has announced a March 7 online event for the launch of SQL Server 2012, the next generation of its database product. TD Bank gets social for better business
After a number of acquisitions, TD Bank Group turned to social collaboration software to help employees span international borders and work together. Insider (registration required)
IBM's Watson Advises at Cancer Center
The Watson supercomputer is about to begin evaluating cancer treatment options that can be delivered to physicians in a matter of seconds. Wall Street Beat: Enterprise spending helps mixed quarter for tech
There were weak spots in the last quarter of 2011 for sector bellwethers Google, IBM, Intel and Microsoft, but corporate demand for technology appeared to remain resilient going into what is expected to be a year of slower growth for global IT spending. 4 Consumer Technologies That Could Change Your Enterprise
From technologies born out of gaming companies to hardware waterproofing products, we find some gems at the Consumer Electronics Show that CIOs will be glad to welcome to their IT shops. IBM quarterly results show modest gains
IBM brought its fiscal 2011 year to a close with modest gains in both revenue and net income, the company reported Thursday. NetApp's Tom Georgens: How we got big, stayed nimble, and view storage today
In an exclusive interview, NetApp CEO Tom Georgens talks about virtualization, the private cloud, and how his company defines big data Wall Street Beat: Tech earnings season could be stormy
Get ready for a perfect storm of earnings news. With tech bellwethers including IBM, Microsoft, Intel and Google set to issue financial reports next week, earnings season will pick up in earnest and judging from recent forecasts and profit warnings, it could be a bumpy ride. IBM smashes Moore's Law, cuts bit size to 12 atoms
IBM researchers have discovered a way to create a bit of data using only 12 iron atoms, which compares to today's magnetic data storage technology requiring about one million atoms for a single bit. Mobile shopping had monster holiday season
Sales and traffic from mobile devices to online retailers during the holidays doubled over 2012 with Apple iPhone and iPad users leading the charge, according to research from IBM. IBM Tracks Pork Chops From Pig to Plate
Meat suppliers can track a single pig all the way from live animal to pork chop, thanks to new technology from IBM that may limit or prevent disease outbreaks. Big IT Vendors Lead Patching Laggards
IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft led the list of companies that failed to patch vulnerabilities after being notified by the world's largest bug-bounty program, according to the TippingPoint Zero-Day Initiative. IBM acquires software testing vendor Green Hat
IBM is buying Green Hat, maker of automated testing tools for integration, SOA (service oriented architecture) implementations and cloud-based deployments, the company announced Wednesday. Terms of the deal were not provided. 2012 tech predictions: From IDG's editors worldwide
Consumerization of IT is the consensus choice of the new year's major technology force, one that will manifest itself in several forms A glance back at 2011
2011 could be described as "The Year of …" many things. The tablet market heated up beyond the Apple iPad. 4G wireless took off with the emergence of big-time LTE networks. Governments and hackers screamed for attention by taking down networks, while IPv6 generated interest for giving the Internet a way to carry on. Insider (registration required) China racing to expand data center capacity
China is in the midst of an unprecedented data center construction boom that's providing business opportunities for U.S. companies and could see China emerge with one of the most advanced computing infrastructures in the world. IBM's Watson shows up for work at Cedars-Sinai's cancer center
IBM's Watson supercomputer is being used in the Cedars-Sinai cancer center to develop applications that will assist doctors in diagnosing and prescribing treatments for patients. Russia building 10-petaflop supercomputer
T-Platforms, a Moscow-based tech company that is behind some of that nation's largest systems, is building a 10-petaflop supercomputer for M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, the company said this week. Andrew Miller: Polycom will drive the next era of collaboration
In an exclusive interview, Polycom CEO Andrew Miller talks about the impact of mobility on the visual communications market and about Polycom's move to the cloud. Insider (registration required) IBM announces tech deals with five African banks
IBM today said it has signed IT service agreements with five African banks that are upgrading core systems or expanding products. IBM, HP, Microsoft lead patching laggards, says bug buyer
IBM, HP and Microsoft led the list of companies that failed to patch vulnerabilities within six months of being notified by the world's biggest bug bounty program, according to HP TippingPoint's Zero-Day Initiative (ZDI). IBM tracks pork chops from pig to plate
IBM is deploying technology that allows meat suppliers to track a single pig all the way from farm animal to pork chop. IT workers' top 4 dream employers
Computerworld asked 431 IT workers where they dream of working someday. Here's a look at the work environments of the four companies that came out on top. Cisco impresses with UCS
If you're tempted to think of Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS) as just another blade server — don't. In fact, if you just want a bunch of blades for your computer room, don't call Cisco — Dell, HP, and IBM all offer simpler and more cost-effective options. Wall Street Beat: IPOs, M&A, chip news stir tech optimism
Zynga's initial public offering Friday, a raft of acquisition announcements this week from IBM, Salesforce and others, and some upbeat reports on the chip and hardware sector are putting a positive spin on year-end news for the tech sector. IBM buys Emptoris for contract managment, supply software
IBM has signed a deal to buy supply and contract management software vendor Emptoris in another bid to fill out its growing catalog of business-to-business and business-to-consumer commerce technologies, the company announced Thursday. Terms of the deal, which is scheduled to close in the first quarter of next year, were not provided. IBM strikes deal with EU over antitrust complaint
Computer giant IBM has made legally binding concessions to European Union regulators in order to avoid a fine for anticompetitive practices. What's next with hypervisors?
The world of hypervisors is complicated by the fact that there are proprietary and open source tools and the latter are often pressed into service in different ways, say nothing of the fact that the whole market is evolving quickly. To get a handle on recent developments, Network World Editor in Chief John Dix corralled a panel of experts to assess where we are today and where we're going. The experts included Al Gillen, an analyst IDC who tracks virtualization developments, Kerry Kim, director of solutions marketing at SUSE, and Adam Jollans, program director of IBM's Linux and Open Virtualization Strategy. IBM buys e-commerce analytics vendor Demandtec for $440M
IBM is buying analytics vendor DemandTec for $440 million in a bid to build out its line of e-commerce software, the companies announced Thursday. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of next year. IBM launches enterprise social collaboration apps for tablets
Responding to increased use of tablets within workplaces, IBM will release on Wednesday several mobile applications designed to let employees use IBM enterprise social collaboration software with iPads and other mobile devices. IBM demonstrates first Racetrack Memory chip
IBM on Monday demonstrated its first Racetrack Memory chip, which could offer as much data storage capacity as a hard drive but with the read/write speeds of DRAM and durability of NAND flash. CIOs forge vendor collectives to extract business benefits
Shell and other big businesses use their clout to get normally hyper-competitive vendors to work together on IT projects and reveal their R&D plans. Insider (registration required) HP server revenue falls in turbulent quarter, Gartner says
Worldwide server revenue grew 5.2% in the third quarter but declined for Hewlett-Packard (HP), Gartner Inc. said in a report on server sales during the quarter. RISC, Itanium lose out to x86 in Q3 server market, Gartner says
The worldwide server market grew by unit shipments and revenue in the third quarter this year, but the downward spiral of RISC and Itanium servers continued on the gains of x86 servers, Gartner said on Monday. Better Windows Support Due on IBM Mainframes
IBM said its mainframes will soon be able to manage Windows applications, bridging one of the last major divides in data centers. Site tracks 'love,' 'hate' of SAP, Oracle and other software vendors
Enterprise software vendors have been rushing to build or buy "sentiment analysis" technologies that can analyze the tone of what people are saying about companies and brands on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Analytics, mobile apps are hot, hot, hot
It's clear by the increasing use of analytics software that companies are struggling to get their hands around the huge amounts of data it takes to run a successful business. But developing social, mobile, cloud computing and other applications are also driving the need for new technical skills. Exascale computing seen in this decade
At the supercomputing conference in Seattle, there's an almost obsessive focus on developing an exascale computing system before the end of the decade. Fusion-io to release 10TB PCIe flash module
Fusion-io today announced a new in-server flash module that offers up to 10TB of capacity and 1.3 million I/O's per second performance. Huawei wows Global Forum
Brussels, Belgium -- The 20th annual Global Forum last week highlighted the growing power of Asian information industries, plus the formidable technology challenges facing IT professionals who grapple with increasingly urgent integration requirements as systems converge and people become more mobile. Server makers adopt AMD's new 16-core chips
Server vendors on Monday came out in support of Advanced Micro Devices' latest Opteron 6200 server chips, which advance chip technology to new highs with 16 processor cores. Why healthcare IT security is harder than the rest
In this interview, security expert Gunnar Peterson explains why securing health care IT systems is quite different from other types of business IT infrastructure. Top500 list passes another milestone: 10 petaflops
Japan's K Computer has retained its pole position on the Top500 list of fastest supercomputers and become the first machine on the list to achieve performance of more than 10 petaflops. Cray to build supercomputer with new AMD chips
Cray Inc. is building a supercomputer for federally funded scientific research under a contract valued at $188 million that was originally won by IBM. IBM to build e-commerce research labs for Chinese retailer
IBM has reached a deal with Chinese electronics retailer Suning Appliance to build research centers in China and the U.S. meant to develop e-commerce products for the company. Former IBM CEO John Opel dies
John Opel, who served as IBM CEO from 1981 to 1985, passed away at the age of 86 last week, IBM confirmed Monday. How IBM started grading its developers' productivity
Tooling and process can only go so far to assure code quality. IBM is analyzing application developers based on the volume and quality of the work they do. IBM Quietly Names a New CEO
IBM doesn't like drama -- and it proved that with its recent appointment of Virginia Rometty as its new CEO. Insider (registration required) Windows set to arrive on IBM mainframes
IBM mainframes are on the verge of managing Windows applications, crossing one of the last big system divides in data centers. IBM open sources messaging client for embedded devices
In a move to bring network connectivity to a wider range of devices, sensors and appliances, IBM has donated the source code of its machine-to-machine messaging software to the Eclipse Foundation, the company announced Thursday. Speech Recognition Through the Decades: How We Ended Up With Siri
Looking back on the development of speech recognition technology is like watching a child grow up, progressing from the baby-talk level of recognizing single syllables, to building a vocabulary of thousands of words, to answering questions with quick, witty replies, as Apple's supersmart virtual assistant Siri does. VMware out, Twitter in at Java oversight committee
VMware is no longer a member of the Java Community Process SE/EE Executive Committee, but Twitter has joined, according to election results finalized this week. Cisco vs. HP vs. IBM vs. Dell
Cisco used to be a networking company, pure and simple. It built its dominance and influence on capturing a dominant market position in routers and switches, both in the enterprise and in service provider networks. 3D chips: The next electronics revolution
Stacked silicon is being hailed as the wave of the future. Experts expect volume production in two years. Insider (registration required) Ubuntu to run on tablets, smartphones and TVs, canonical founder Shuttleworth says
Canonical is working with hardware vendors to port Ubuntu to smartphones, tablet computers and Internet TVs, founder Mark Shuttleworth has told journalists. Updated Sybase IQ supports Hadoop, MapReduce, 'Big Data'
Sybase is hoping its IQ analytic database can make its mark in the burgeoning "Big Data" market with an array of new features, including native integration with the open-source MapReduce and Hadoop programming frameworks for large-scale data processing. IBM's Watson edges Harvard students in 'Jeopardy' quiz
IBM's Watson supercomputer eked out a victory in a 'Jeopardy' quiz-show battle with a trio of Harvard Business School students on Monday, pulling out the win with a higher wager on the Final Jeopardy clue that ends every game. Robots are taking mid-level jobs, changing the economy
Computers and robots will replace humans in enough jobs that they will dramatically change the economy, said industry watchers and MIT economists at a robotics symposium Monday. And, they said, the transition has already started. IBM opens up smartphone, tablet support for its workers
IBM has embraced the growing 'bring your own device' trend by allowing its employees to buy and use their own smartphones and tablets for work tasks, said IBM's CTO for mobility, Bill Bodin. Is Brocade once again for sale?
According to a published report, Brocade is again making it known that it has placed itself on the selling block, hoping to drum up interest in suitors with enough money to cover its more than $2 billion market cap.
QuickPoll: Should CEOs be forced to step aside when they get to 60?
The traditional retirement age for CEOs at IBM has been 60, or close to it. Should CEOs be forced to step aside when they get to 60? HP decides that being bigger is better
In opting not to get rid of its PC division, HP -- and new CEO Meg Whitman -- offered some insight about what type of company they think HP should be. LSI to buy flash controller maker SandForce
LSI Corporation today announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire SandForce, a leading provider of flash storage processors for enterprise and client PCIe-based flash cards and solid-state drives. Why give up IBM's top job at 60?
The traditional retirement age for CEOs at IBM has been 60, or close to it. IBM's new CEO, Virginia Rometty, has a plan
IBM doesn't like drama -- and it proved that with its appointment Tuesday of Virginia Rometty as its new CEO. New IBM CEO latest in changes at tech companies
IBM's announcement Tuesday that company veteran Virginia Rometty will take over on Jan. 1 as president and CEO from Sam Palmisano is the latest in high-profile changes at the top in key technology companies, including Apple, Yahoo, and Hewlett-Packard. IBM names Rometty to replace Palmisano as CEO
IBM has elected Virginia Rometty as president and chief executive officer effective Jan. 1, replacing Sam Palmisano, who will retain the chairman's role. IBM turns up Watson-like natural language healthcare analytics
IBM today said it was rolling out software that will help doctors and insurance companies reduce costs by better analyzing and managing huge amount of patient data. 'Big data' prep: 5 things IT should do now
Ready or not, big data is coming. Here are 5 things IT managers can do today to prepare for the data deluge of tomorrow. Linux kernel now supports OpenRISC, nested virtualization
Linus Torvalds has released the next version of the Linux kernel, and with it come virtualization enhancements and support for the emerging OpenRISC processor architecture. Widely used encryption standard is insecure, say experts
A weakness in XML Encryption can be exploited to decrypt sensitive information, researchers say. Forrester: Tech Changes to Expect in Next 3 Years
Business Intelligence tools, mobile apps and cloud application platforms are areas that will evolve and create significantly more business value between today and 2014, according to a new Forrester report on enterprise technology trends. Insider (registration required) Wall Street Beat: Tech sales strong in third quarter
Against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, a raft of third-quarter earnings reports this week from some of the biggest players in IT showed that while tech sales remain strong overall, there are some weak spots that are stirring concerns among market watchers. Security remains a top concern for cloud app builders
Amazon, IBM, Rackspace reps debate cloud security and availability, along with use of SQL and database connectivity in the cloud at ZendCon IBM clouding the midmarket
Small and midsized organizations will deploy cloud services more readily than their larger counterparts, predicted the IBM general manager for midmarket sales at a company event Tuesday. As a result, IBM is aggressively pursuing this market, namely by helping partners market the company's PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) to these potential customers. Former Apple iPhone exec Papermaster becomes CTO at AMD
Advanced Micro Devices has appointed former Apple iPhone development chief Mark Papermaster as chief technology officer, where he will take charge of developing AMD's future microprocessors and hardware. IBM announces preconfigured analytics servers
IBM on Wednesday introduced mainframe and Power-based systems for analytics in an effort to compete with Oracle's Exadata. IBM's third-quarter growth lighter than expected
IBM increased both its income and revenue for the third quarter, but the revenue growth came in slightly lower than analysts had predicted, leading to fears that the sluggish economy is hampering IBM's growth. IBM refines cloud offerings
IBM has expanded its SmartCloud services, giving customers more tools to migrate their existing processes and data onto IBM's PaaS (platform-as-a-service) offerings, or to set up their own private clouds. IBM to sell global data migration engine, NAS/iSCSI SAN
IBM plans to roll out software on its midrange and high-end clustered storage arrays that allows policy-based migration, backups and data deletion. The company also will announce that its V7000 series array can perform both file- and block-based data transfers. IBM takes its BI capabilities into the data center
IBM is taking its business analytics capabilities down a new path by making them available to IT organizations to monitor and predict issues with systems and processes. IBM buying cluster company Platform Computing
Extending its expertise in the field of high performance computing (HPC), IBM is acquiring cluster computing software vendor Platform Computing, the companies announced Tuesday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Companies slow to take on social media, survey finds
Corporate executives see the need to use social media to connect with their customers, but many acknowledge that they're still figuring out how best to do it. Cray building $97 million supercomputer for U.S.
Cray was awarded a $97 million contract to build a supercomputer that could potentially deliver up to 20 petaflops of peak performance, or 20 quadrillion floating operations per second, to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Mobile security threats heat up
Criminals, security researchers, vendors and even investors are now taking mobile security more seriously. Oracle rolls out 'Big Data' appliance
Oracle unveiled the Big Data Appliance, the newest addition to its line of products that combine software and hardware, during the OpenWorld conference in San Francisco on Monday. Google is most-sought employer -- again
If you're a college student and want to work for Google, you're definitely not alone. IBM launches city parking analytics system
IBM has launched a system designed to help cities ease parking congestion and collect more parking fees, the company announced Wednesday. The service could also help motorists find parking spaces more easily in crowded urban areas. IBM to lead $4.4 billion chip investment in New York
Five chip makers, including Intel, IBM, Samsung Electronics, GlobalFoundries and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. have committed investment of US$4.4 billion in research and development in the state of New York over the next five years, to develop new 450-millimeter chip wafer technology, the state's governor Andrew M. Cuomo said on Tuesday. The inside scoop on Nationwide's social networking project
Nationwide wanted to use an internal social network to improve productivity and interactivity. It ended up using Yammer, and here's why. Insider (registration required) Oracle's Sparc SuperCluster due by year end
Oracle has launched its new Sparc T4 processor, along with new hardware that it hopes will turn up the heat on server rivals Hewlett-Packard and IBM. IBM's Watson to Diagnose Patients
Healthcare applications using the 'evidence-based medicine' are being jointly developed for Jeopardy-playing supercomputer Watson by IBM and health care provider WellPoint Five outsiders who could lead Hewlett-Packard
Having gone through a rash of CEOs in the past 10 to 15 years, Hewlett-Packard may soon find itself looking for yet another new chief, despite just tapping Meg Whitman for that job this week. New face, same challenges at HP
HP has put the rumors to rest by replacing CEO Léo Apotheker with Meg Whitman, but the big questions swirling around the company are anything but resolved.
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