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Talk to any CIO or IT analyst and it’s likely they won’t be talking about the latest database from Oracle or development platform from Microsoft. There’s even less excitement about hardware like the latest network switch from Cisco, storage gear from EMC or server from HP. In fact, they’re probably not talking about any proprietary Read more...

The Obama administration has apparently fallen in love with Big Data (especially yours) with its tracking of mountains of phone calls and Web data. But for business customers, the Big Data buzzword might actually slow sales. Twice in one week I’ve heard customers or providers complain that Big Data is not what it’s cracked up Read more...

For the 25 years I’ve been covering IT, security vendors and their customers have struggled with selling information security to the chief executive and chief financial officers who pay the bills. The problem is that spending on security is like spending on insurance. You can spend Buttoo little for years and everything seems fine. But Read more...

While top retailers hang back over liability fears, the Bangladesh government lacks cars to even get inspectors to garment factories like the ones whose recent collapse killed 1,127 workers. Meanwhile, we consumers keep the system going because we like to save money. And, hey, how do we know where that shirt or jeans were made? Read more...

E-books (short, illustration-rich explainers of complex concepts) can be good or they can be trite. Too much dense copy and they become as hard to read as the worst white paper. Too little copy, or a too-cute theme, and they turn off serious buyers. Sonatype, in my opinion, hit the sweet spot with their promo Read more...

Are you an old, enterprise software guy (or one of their marketing minions) who is tired of having sand kicked in your face at the beach by cool new open source competitors? My reporting is telling me that open source software (whose source code can be tweaked by customers or anyone else) is often outpacing Read more...

Close to 80 percent of PR folks want reporters to interrupt their clients if the client isn’t doing a good job on an interview. Those are the most recent results of my quick on-line survey about what reporter and PR pros should do to prep clients for interviews that will result in a quote.. “Be a Read more...

Wondering if buyers out there care what you have to say? Worry no more. A recent ITSMA survey of technology buyers found that vendor Web sites, rather than their peers are their primary source of information at early stages in the buying process. In fact, 70% of buyers wanted to hear from a vendor salesperson Read more...