Stories by Scot Finnie

Playing the Wrong Hand With Windows 8

The PC is definitely not dead for Microsoft (and it won't be for a long, long time), but Windows 8 might hasten its decline.

Opinion: Are tablets inevitable as PC replacements?

The tablet phenomenon is bigger than you probably realize. Before the "new iPad" debuted, Apple announced that it had sold 55 million of its tablets to date. Apple CEO Tim Cook helped put that figure in perspective at a conference in February: "It took us 22 years to sell 55 million Macs," he reportedly said. "It took us about five years to sell 22 million iPods, and it took us about three years to sell that many iPhones." The fact that the iPad sold 55 million units in less than two years tells us something: Tablets are a runaway success.

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I dumped my iPhone 4 for the Android Galaxy Nexus

I like a lot of things about my iPhone 4. For starters, the whole "antennagate" thing was overblown. Lots of phones drop bars if you grip them a certain way while in a weak signal area. (My new Galaxy Nexus does.) And although I live in a dead zone for both AT&T and Verizon, right out of the box my AT&T iPhone 4 got noticeably better reception than my original iPhone. A simple iPhone 4 case prevented any loss of signal reception due to hand shielding.

Premier 100 are calculated risk-takers

The annual Premier 100 IT Leaders Conference and the accompanying special issue of Computerworld are among this magazine's proudest achievements. This is the Premier 100 program's 13th consecutive year, and with the addition of 2012's class of honorees, the list of Premier 100 alumni now includes 1,300 of the sharpest, most successful senior leaders in IT.

Opinion: The lure of mobile is immediacy

Around the world, the rapidly expanding use of smartphones and tablets is turning into a transformational trend - for enterprises and consumers alike.

A running start to 2012

For IT, 2011 was a transitional year. A lot of big things were on the horizon ( data center as a service, for instance), but few of the profound concepts jelled.

Steve Jobs' indelible mark on the computer industry

There is unlikely to be another visionary like Apple Chairman Steve Jobs, who died Wednesday at age 56, no one who will have anything approaching his impact on the computer and electronics industries.

Getting IT set for mobile

"This business will get out of control. It will get out of control, and we'll be lucky to live through it."

Time to get smart about smartphones

If you didn't get the message with the release of the iPhone or the subsequent arrival of Android, then Windows Phone 7 has to be your wake-up call. Mobile is no longer just the future; its time is now.

Questioning the netbook phenomenon

It's human nature to get on the bandwagon of a "good thing." Take the screaming hype that is the netbook phenomenon, for example.

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Firefox 3 for Mac: Is it time to switch from Safari?

When I switched from a Windows PC to a Mac in 2006, I was very disappointed in my choice of Web browsers. As a confirmed Firefox user, I expected Mozilla's Mac browser to be a no-brainer. But after trying Firefox 1.5 and 2.0 for the Mac, I adopted Apple's Safari -- and haven't looked back. Now that Firefox 3.0 is out, though, is it finally the better choice for Mac OS X?

Apple's newest iMac packs a wallop

When Apple recently sent along one of its new iMacs -- a sweet 24-inch model with a 2.8GHz Penryn processor -- I agreed to take it home and give it a dose of family testing at the Finnie household. And with three kids aged 3, 6, and 16, that's saying something.

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Eating my words on the MacBook Air

For those of you who take joy in such things (and I would if I were you), it looks like I'm going to have eat a good many of the words from my initial analysis of the MacBook Air back in January.

The verdict: Leopard spanks Vista

This story caps off a truly comprehensive wave of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard coverage from Computerworld. Our readers have asked for more operating system coverage, and we're delivering.

Why Microsoft should fear Apple

Should Microsoft fear Apple's Macintosh? Maybe not quaking-in-your-boots scared, mind you, but Redmond should certainly be concerned.