The world has changed and customers are no longer content with mere solutions. For that matter, many people don’t really care about the hardware and software behind a solution. Instead, businesses want to see the outcome of IT—the actual improvements and efficiencies it can bring about.

In this new scenario it’s imperative to become a one-stop shop offering end-to-end solutions. Back that up with a trusted and credible name and a large customer base.

Companies have a certain set of skills and are good at a finite set of things. For the missing pieces, they either acquire or ...

On my way to the Windows 7 launch conference I pondered over the future of the desktop OS. Yes, physical keyboards and mice will eventually be replaced by multi-touch and speech recognition interfaces. Motion- and gesture-based controls are also likely. But the thought that really intrigues me is the replacement of the desktop OS with something else, like say virtual desktops or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).

VDI is a desktop delivery model. The client desktop (OS, applications and user data) reside on a server in the cloud or in a data center—not on client devices. Desktop images are pushed ...

Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth shows the horrifying outcome of global warming. Within years the polar ice caps will be gone, causing water levels to rise by several meters. Entire cities will disappear from the face of the earth, much like Atlantis.

At the recent Pittsburg summit, heads of G20 nations arrived at some agreement on climate change. In reality, it translates into little action or progress. There is an urgency to do something about this crisis now, at a quicker pace. We’ve had directives such as the Kyoto protocol and incentives like Carbon Credits. Yet, these haven’t ...

Technical obsolescence makes it necessary for companies to replace products every few years. Isn’t there a way to make hardware obsolete-proof? And why can’t vendors take back old products and sell new ones at a reduced rate?

Buying new hardware every few years is getting to be a costly proposition and ...

My first glimpse of Telepresence was in the old Star Trek TV series with Captain James T Kirk confronting the Romulans, Klingons and other aliens via a huge screen on the bridge of the USS Enterprise. And then I discovered holographic communications in the film Star Wars (1977) and the concept of Teleportation in The Fly and Star Trek.

These days I do a fair amount of inter-city travel and I can see that the ‘laptop generation’ is abstaining from travel. Apart from the downturn, the fear of Swine Flu infection is another reason for the reduction in corporate ...

We have seen this with online search. Yahoo was once a leader. Then AltaVista, Lycos, Excite and many others came along. As the market became crowded, these search services had to somehow distinguish themselves, so they evolved into portals offering ...

They are prudent and frugal when it comes to IT investment, yet they dare to innovate or implement new solutions

I would like to begin by raising a toast to the 10 Indian CIOs who made it to InformationWeek’s Global CIO 50 list. What makes this occasion special is the fact that India’s IT leaders were evaluated alongside CIOs and senior IT managers (861 in total) from around the world. In fact, our editorial team nominated 50 CIOs from India. This kind of recognition, at a global level, speaks volumes for the achievements of Indian CIOs and the IT infrastructure ...

In this age where teams or workgroups are dispersed in different countries and continents, it makes perfect sense to use social media to collaborate and share ideas

Many of us have accounts with Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, Orkut, Youtube, Flickr, Picasa, Blogger, Yahoo Groups, Windows Live Spaces or some other social media service. Recall your pleasant experiences with these services and the hours you spend online exchanging news photos, contacts, information and more—with relatives, friends and business peers. Don’t you see a clear benefit? Now imagine what can be achieved if the same was applied within your organization. I cite ...

Hackers are playing the emotional and social card to trap users

I am referring to the Trend Micro 2008 ...