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SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott explains its five-market focus

If you think SAP equals ERP, Bill McDermott would like a few minutes to set you straight about the 2012 version of the software giant, which he claims is in the midst of "an intellectual renewal." McDermott has been co-CEO -- along with Jim Hagemann Snabe -- of SAP since 2010 and has helped broaden the company's strategy beyond traditional applications and analytics to the cloud, mobile, Big Data and a bet-the-business focus on real-time computing with the HANA in-memory database at the forefront. Insider (registration required)

Find the best mobile tax filing app for iOS

When it comes to giving Uncle Sam his due, we're dealing with an embarrassment of riches. Want to use an online service to prepare and file your tax return? You've got at least five online tax preparation sites to pick from. More comfortable with traditional desktop products? I've looked at both TurboTax Premiere 2011 from Intuit and At Home Premium 2011 from H&R Block. And if you're turning to an iPhone or iPad for an increasing number of day-to-day tasks, tax app makers have something to offer as well.

The Grill: Catherine P. Bessant

The Bank of America tech leader's mandate is to streamline and modernize back-office operations. Insider (registration required)

The CFO's role in the data breach war

Finance, working with IT, increasingly must manage the serious risks, from planning to handling fallout.

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.

10 questions for CDW CFO Ann E. Ziegler

-- Name: Ann E. Ziegler

A Special eGuide: Financial Services, an Industry on the Vanguard

This eGuide from the editors of Computerworld offers a look at technology shifts throughout the financial services industry. Insider (registration required)

Industry-specific clouds come rolling in

Airlines and financial services firms have their own clouds, or will shortly. Here's what you need to consider before jumping.

First look: Google Wallet lets you tap 'n' spend

Google's smartphone payment app, Google Wallet, has brought the ease of paying for goods with the tap of a phone to America.

QuickPoll: Will you ditch your wallet and use an NFC phone for payments?

Google is said to be working with MasterCard and Citigroup to deploy NFC technology inside of Android phones to allow mobile payments. Apple is expected to deliver NFC on its next iPhone, which could create critical mass for mobile payments. Will you ditch your wallet and use your smartphone for payments?

When the CIO is also the CFO

Some would argue the relationship between IT and finance is naturally combative. So what happens when one person holds two titles -- CIO and CFO -- in the same company?

The business of risk management

CIO sat down with the head of actuarial studies at the Australian School of Business, University of NSW, Associate Professor John Evans, to talk risk management and the role it plays in the enterprise.

A&G IT director talks business continuity

A&G insurance is probably best known for its Budget Direct insurance brand. IT director, Paul Malt, talks to CIO.

The top 10 stories in IT this week

We used to go weeks -- months even -- with no news about Java, but that seems to be changing since Oracle bought Sun Microsystems and took over licensing control of the language, which sparked heat this week from the Apache Software Foundation. Oracle also brought star-power to the witness stand this week as CEO Larry Ellison testified in its intellectual-property theft case against SAP.

Barnaby Jack hits ATM jackpot at Black Hat

Barnaby Jack hit the jackpot at Black Hat on Wednesday. Twice.

The virtual blind spot

Malicious hypervisors. Subversive virtual machines. Live migration impersonators. Welcome to the world of server virtualization, where the threats are new and the traditional security tools like firewalls and intrusion-prevention systems don't cut it anymore. Unfortunately, at many enterprises, security strategies haven't kept pace with the shift to x.86 server virtualization.

How tech is changing banks

If you know where to look, there is incredible innovation happening in the banking space, especially in how customers interact with banks -- and their money, says columnist Mike Elgan.

Q&A: Christopher Crowhurst discusses Thomson Reuters' massive virtualization initiative

Thomson Reuters is in the middle of a massive virtualization effort involving 20,000 physical machines growing at an alarming rate. The company is increasing storage utilization through virtualization and thin provisioning and using the capital expenditure saving from that to pay for its server virtualization project, which overall will reduce its power consumption as well.

Portrait of a Security-Savvy User

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., which settled $1.88 quadrillion (thousand trillion) in securities transactions last year, takes information security pretty seriously. Here's what that means.

Q&A: Head of PCI council sees security standard as solid, despite breaches

Bob Russo, general manager of the PCI Security Standards Council, spoke with Computerworld about the organization's current thinking on the PCI standard, what's changed since he took the helm in 2007, and what he makes so far of the Hannaford and Okemo data breaches.