Stories about: Teco

The Ruby on Rails site bills its eponymous project as "Web development that doesn't hurt." I'm not really sure what that means, but it certainly sounds good.

Microsoft Australia made its foray into the small-business CRM market this week with software aimed at making service and sales professionals in SMEs and divisions of large companies more productive.

Diallo Noel, who is black, was a certified computer technician with no degree and five months of fruitless interviews behind him when he arrived at Public Broadcasting Service last year to interview for a help desk job. After two technical interviews, he was surprised to be ushered into CIO Andre Mendes' office.

Each morning, Kelly Walls spends 45 minutes driving through Atlanta traffic to his job as CIO at Royal Specialty Underwriting Inc. (RSUI), a liability, casualty and special-property underwriting firm. But instead of considering the commute dead time or, at best, a chance to make a few business calls, Walls spends the time zeroing out his e-mail, fax and phone messages. "I receive 75 to 80 messages a day, so it's good to arrive with a clean in-box," says Walls. "I can immediately engage in productive work rather than playing catch-up with messages." Like thousands of other companies, RSUI uses a unified messaging (UM) system to provide employees with one source for all business-related communications. While such systems have been hyped for years, it finally looks as though the technology is showing enough maturity for widespread deployment. Companies are employing various strategies to negotiate UM's biggest roadblock - integration - and now the technology is being implemented to increase productivity, cut IT costs and streamline operations.

TIf you're going to style your business for the Internet, you're going to need IT talent. And right now, demand outstrips the supply of good technologists by far, making it tougher than ever to retain staff.