Open Source
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When Egos Dare 05/06/2007 10:17:02
For some observers and practitioners, the federated model brings the best elements of centralization and decentralization to the IT table. Others aren’t so sure . . .The monarch was dead. Demoralized and shaken, the organization spent time mourning for a popular and high-profile CIO who had reigned for many years. Then, with time starting to dull the pain, the young princes began sharpening their knives, sensing their best opportunity in years to seize power - +
The Enterprise Gets Googled 08/06/2007 11:00:00
Can you imagine an IT environment without applications to roll out? You're going to have to if Google's plan to conquer the enterprise worksCan you imagine an IT environment without applications to roll out? You're going to have to if Google's plan to conquer the enterprise works - +
The Declaration of Interdependence 03/09/2007 15:02:56
The world has changed. You can’t deny employees the freedom to use consumer applications at work. Here’s how to live with and profit from themDigital cameras didn't creep up on the Drees company as much as they pounced. Five years ago a lot of employees at the $US1.1 billion real estate company weren't even using computers. Today, those same employees are responsible for one of the company's more innovative uses of technology - +
9 Paths to Higher Performance 10/12/2007 14:09:23
When an organization brings together talented people in a creative, collaborative environment it fosters a culture of high performance, which in turn leads to superior business resultsLike high-achieving individuals, some organizations seem to have the Midas touch. Virtually every initiative they touch earns them gold and even those that fail never seem to cost them much of anything at all - +
Your World. . . Hacked 02/10/2007 10:51:23
As your business becomes more collaborative and global, the risks to your company’s trade secrets rise proportionally. Fortunately, there are new strategies to protect the data that allows you to competeThe call to Bob Bailey, an IT executive with a major US government contractor, came on an otherwise ordinary day in October 2003. "Why are you attacking us?" demanded the caller, an IT leader with a Silicon Valley manufacturer. He wanted to know why Bailey's company had launched a denial-of-service attack against his network
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Gift retailer RedBalloon Days is a company that prides itself on delivering experiences for people. And since is formation in 2001, the company's rapid rise, says its founder, can be attributed to building its applications on top of open source software.
RedBalloon Days CEO, or "chief experience officer", Naomi Simson said after a long career in corporate marketing she was used to having everything "just work" but when she started her own business there were questions around "who do you call for help".
"I had this big vision but not the resources to support it," Simson said.
That "big vision" is now available as an e-commerce Web site where people can purchase 1800 different experiences - from skydiving to dinners on mountains - across Australia and New Zealand.
"We package up the experience [and] 70 percent of business is from corporations," Simson said. "In the first year when we launched I used to go to our Web site every day and it was two months and three days before we made our first sale."
Since that first sale RedBalloon Days has seen astronomical growth and now sells some 80,000 experiences per year.
Before the company adopted open source en masse, it had purchased a $50,000 proprietary application, which Simson said was too inflexible.
"We were warehousing our data on something that was closed and if I wanted to change something it was going to cost me a fortune," she said. "We spent $50,000 and didn't get $50,000 in return. I can't afford that investment and get it wrong."
After a bad experience with the proprietary application, the company began to use a variety of open source software including Firefox plug-ins, SugarCRM, Jive Wildfire instant messaging, Apache, Subversion for version control, Eclipse, and Trac for project management.
"Where open source fits is in the areas of customization, as it is totally customer-centric," Simson said. "Open source has worked powerfully for us because it is a community, it's so user centric."
Simson also praised the "collaboration and aggregation" aspects of open source and how businesses get to "try before you buy".
"The opportunity open source brings is to be able to participate with community," she said. "It's very much performance driven and is very much making the planet a better place. Before we think about developing something ourselves we get the opportunity of trying, testing and seeing if it's been developed elsewhere. The economies of scale we get is amazing."
Simson said RedBalloon Days is still recruiting and looking for more IT people and the company is a good open source citizen and encourages creative ideas in a fun environment.
"In the spirit of the community of open source we have made available the technology we have produced on our labs site," she said. "We created a real-time spelling application."
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Beyond Virtualisation - The Roadmap to 2012
CIO Breakfast Briefing
8:30am - 10:30am
Brisbane | 22 July | Sofitel Brisbane
Sydney | 23 July | Four Seasons Hotel
Canberra | 24 July | The Hyatt
Attend and discover:
- What happens after virtualisation
- The benefits automation drives
- When automated infrastructures will emerge
- What the roadmap to 2012 looks like
- How to deliver an automated architecture
- How to maximise your investment in virtualisation
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Computerworld Live Podcast #96: Security at the Edge 11/06/2008 09:22:22
CW Live speaks with Amol Mitra, HP ProCurve Director of Marketing for Asia Pacific and Japan. Today's topic: how enterprises are starting to shift away from simply controlling security via server logins, firewalls and moving to more adaptive security frameworks. - +
Data Management Edition #10: Multi-Petascale Systems 02/05/2008 09:12:33
This week we look at sustainability and the development of multicore technologies to build multi-petascale systems. - +
IT Security Edition #11: How to poison the Storm botnet 01/05/2008 08:51:55
This week CW Live presents a case study on how to poison the notorious Storm botnet . Plus we take a look at Cisco's plans for Ironport. - +
IT Security Edition #10: Cyber-battles fought and won 24/04/2008 11:09:47
Vendors bow to end user pressure to improve product security, and we take a look at the latest concepts shaping the cyber-battlefield of the future. - +
Data Management Edition #9: Data centre makeover 24/04/2008 07:43:06
This week CW Live looks at the death of the old style data centre which is undergoing its first makeover in more than 30 years.
WatchGuard Unveils Vision of Extensible Network Security 2008-07-09 16:53:00+10
WD’s New My Book® Mirror Edition™ External Hard Drive Provides The Safest Place For Valuable Personal Content 2008-07-09 15:00:00+10
Zepto release the Mythos, the 2nd installment in the Centrino 2 refresh 2008-07-09 12:05:00+10
Symantec Data Protection Solutions Preferred by Users and Industry Experts 2008-07-09 11:56:00+10
Residential VoIP: Let’s Get Naked, Declares IDC 2008-07-09 10:43:00+10
Network Aware Service Management
Today’s complex, distributed and virtualised IT environments are almost impossible to manage. Learn how to obtain end-to-end visibility, as well as automated root cause analysis from within Microsoft’s System Centre Operations Manager 2007, creating a unique solution that addresses the need for network-aware, end-to-end service management.
