Carolyn April

Creating Jobs How IT Influences the Economy Global spending on IT will create 5.8 million new jobs between the end of 2009 and the end of 2013. The expected growth rate of 3 percent a year is more than three times as fast as the growth of total employment. No Title IT spending is expected […]

In talking to Cisco partners about the networking giant’s plan to acquire video conferencing big-leaguer Tandberg, one thing becomes very clear. Most of these guys already sell Tandberg – a lot. It makes perfect sense that they do. Cisco’s Telepresence video conferencing solution, which I’ve used and will vouch is incredibly cool technology, is nonetheless […]

On the heels of announcing plans to acquire video conferencing stalwart Tandberg for $3 billion, Cisco‘s CEO John Chambers along with Tandberg CEO Fredrik Halvorsen put out a video blog meant to assure partners of their critical role in selling the combined technologies and solutions. Check it out.

In an memo to customers and partners posted on Microsoft’s Website this week, company CEO Steve Ballmer says that the economic recession has resulted in fundamental change in how the economy and business will operate, the so-called “new normal.” The new normal reflects changes in behavior that are going to value cost-cutting, less debt and […]

Looking to expand its reach and capabilities in serving the managed services market, IT trade association CompTIA announced plans Wednesday to acquire a counterpart association, MSP Partners. CompTIA officials characterized the deal, for which financial terms were not disclosed, as just the latest piece of a broader effort to engage with other organizations serving the […]

What’s up with Red Hat? Despite a recession that has bitten pretty much everyone in the industry with the same ruthless precision, Red Hat has managed to show six straight quarters of escalating subscription sales. And last week, the open source company’s second quarter results beat analyst’s expectations on earnings AND strong revenue growth. For […]

If we’ve learned one thing about Twitter, it’s to watch what you say out loud, in any forum, or your words might become fodder for tweeters everywhere. Even closed door meetings with no journalists present aren’t safe. Just ask Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Now Ballmer’s pretty candid even when reporters are around, but he probably […]

Is this scenario familiar to you? You are on a sales call and it’s going well. After a nice long conversation and a WebEx presentation, the customer says he thinks your software might be a good fit for his company. You think it’s a done deal. Then, “Can we try it out first?” That’s when […]

Things might just be looking up for the economy. At least that’s the word from IT industry association CompTIA, whose recent survey of technology company confidence shows some signs that the market could be on the upswing. CompTIA surveyed 200 technology companies across three different confidence measures to come up with an overall indicator instrument […]

iland is a perfect example of a company that is evolving during these cloudy times. The Houston-based company’s roots are that of a traditional hosting firm, with five data centers in the United States and one in London. But the company has turned its attention to the cloud, positioning itself as the behind-the-scenes data center […]

For Microsoft and Oracle, the word of the week is Accelerate. That’s the term the software rivals put front and center in separate announcements pertaining to their respective business applications suites. Oracle held a live virtual event for its partners to introduce an update to the three-year-old Oracle Accelerate program, which is a combination of […]

In a telling move that indicates the momentum of cloud computing, Microsoft this week placed into technical preview its forthcoming Web versions of its juggernaut Office suite. Originally announced at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in July, the now officially dubbed Office Web Apps are lightweight versions of their on-premises counterparts. The technical preview program will […]