Stories by Fred Hapgood

OPINION: Wireless Technology Still in Its Infancy

CIOs looking at the wireless data scene today might get so daunted that they'll begin to think their current tangle of cables and wires looks pretty good. Where do you begin?

Revisit Data Storage Goes Critical

Eight years ago it was already obvious (at least to us) that at some point CIOs were going to morph into CSOs--corporate storage officers. Every year the data river flooded higher and ran faster, with every byte requiring storage methods that were secure, shareable, scalable and monitorable, and could deal nimbly with an ever-wider range of user classes and network types. Sooner or later storage issues had to overwhelm the IS agenda. You can get along with last year's processor, but relying on last year's storage could put a company out of business.

Innovation and Products in the Vanguard

If society is growing more impersonal, at least there is the consolation that computer networks seem to be moving in the opposite direction. Over the past five years, networking environments--the Web being a prime example--have been falling over themselves to mirror the interests and character of their users as closely as possible. If a site proves personable it becomes sticky--meaning users keep coming back--or so the theory goes. And new tools that offer everything from storage areas for correspondence to online collaboration with other visitors hope to make sites more attractive than ever.

Emerging technology - Squeeze this...

New compression tools can help ease the bandwidth crunch