Stories about: IT People

Since the free, online Wikipedia user-created encyclopedia began in 2001, the Linux-based IT infrastructure behind it has been expanded and lassoed together to keep up with the demands of the popular Web site.

When Gmail crashed last Monday, affecting many organizations that depend on it for work e-mail via the Google Apps suite, widespread gnashing of teeth ensued.

Security professionals are set to move beyond IT director control in future, as they take a more proactive approach in order to secure their organizations, according to a study from the Information Security Forum (ISF).

When you're dealing with nuclear weapons, figuring out problems and figuring them out fast is Job One. For scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, that means having the most computing power possible.

It normally isn't news when IT people move from company to company, but there are times and circumstances when personnel movements do attract attention. Microsoft's announcement that Kevin Johnson is leaving for a position with Juniper Networks is noteworthy.

In early July, when vice President and research director Anne Thomas Manes presented at the Burton Group's annual Catalyst conference, she said most SOA failures are due to people and cultural issues more often than for technology issues.

Any way you look at it, video surveillance technology is becoming more sophisticated.

For a young IT employee, challenging company practices can take a lot of nerve. That's especially true if the company is a corporate giant like General Motors. But Phil Edholm did that early in his career and rode it to become an international networking leader with a bandwidth law named after him.

Looking over his glasses with a librarian's stare, an executive recently told me, "You IT people love the word 'governance' but it just seems too..." His voice trailed off as he searched for a way to tactfully convey his sense that "information governance" was a linguistic wedge designed to throw open the doors of board-level access for unkempt geeks and helpdesk managers. Instead of "governance," more comfortable phrases were suggested: "information policy board," "data management" or perhaps "IT steering committee."

Despite an outpouring of demand -- including more than 210,000 people who signed InfoWorld's "Save XP" petition, Microsoft held firm and Monday discontinued sales of XP in most cases. So, we bid adieu to Windows XP.

In many ways, managing a developer is just like managing any other employee. Developers want managers who'll help them solve business and technical problems, who'll protect them from unnecessary office politics and who will help them meet their personal career goals. But programmers are...different. Like musicians, these creative folks can alternate between big-picture thinking and persnickety detail in a heartbeat. They can be sidetracked by silly toys, and convinced to work overtime by the promise of pizza and a T-shirt. Trying to understand and motivate these people can drive managers-particularly nontechnical managers-to distraction.