Features

• Dual persona smartphones non grata at Starz

  Among several BYOD strategies Starz has tried over the past five years, dual persona smartphones -- offering employees a business and personal interface -- took off like a lead balloon.

• IT's new concern: The personal Cloud

  As personal and professional Clouds converge, IT's mission to improve productivity while protecting corporate apps and data is getting tougher.

• Amazon's biggest competitor in the Cloud: Salesforce.com?

  Who is Amazon's biggest competitor in the cloud?

• 13 events that defined Cisco's 2012

  From software defined networking challenges to killing Cius and corporate restricting moves, it was a busy year for Cisco.

• Cloud computing showdown: Amazon vs. Rackspace (OpenStack) vs. Microsoft vs. Google

  It wouldn't be a mischaracterization to equate the cloud computing industry to the wild, wild west.

• Gartner: How big trends in security, mobile, big data and cloud computing will change IT

  When you go to a Gartner conference one of he main things you'll notice is the sheer volume of data they can generate on just about any IT topic. Last week's Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando, Fla., was no different. The conference, attended by some 9000 executives focused on the changes security challenges, mobile computing, big data and cloud will be bringing to IT in the near future.

• Burning questions: Virtualisation

  Virtualizing x86 infrastructure isn't just a one-step process -- as servers change, the whole data center must change as well. While server hypervisors such as VMware's ESX, Microsoft's Hyper-V and Xen can make IT more efficient and cost-effective, many of the virtualization advantages can be canceled out when data centers rely on technology and processes that haven't been updated for the virtualization age.

• Meet the father of Google Apps (who used to work at Microsoft)

  Three weeks into his tenure at Google, Rajen Sheth -- former Microsoft and VMware employee -- met with Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt to propose a way of turning Gmail into a business-class e-mail system. And he was soundly rejected.

• Desktop Virtualization: Top Vendors Still Miss the Mark

  Desktop virtualization has a predicted growth curve that leaves much of the PC and IT services industries smiling: Yet none of the technologies or service providers promising to offer hosted virtual desktops are ready to step into key roles in enterprise IT infrastructures, according the same well-respected analysts who set the server virtualization market on its ear with a similar conclusion last year.

• 5 virtual desktop pitfalls

  Most CIOs have started considering virtual desktop infrastructure and other types of desktop virtualization, but only a minority has reached the deployment stage. (See related story, "As Windows 7 gains steam, VDI set to rise".) Virtual desktops can potentially provide more flexibility for users, make it easier to apply patches and reduce IT help desk calls, but there are still numerous problems that keep desktop pros up at night. Here are five pitfalls to watch out for.

• Technologies come and go, but managing networks is still about problem-solving

  Technologies come and go, but managing networks is still about problem-solving in a changing world, as these IT executives can attest.

• VMware cloud initiative raises vendor lock-in concerns

  VMware talks a good game about interoperability, but its cloud initiative threatens to introduce a type of vendor lock-in that rival virtualization vendors claim they would not impose.

• Platform Computing tackles tech-agnostic cloud management

  Grid vendor Platform Computing has unveiled new private cloud software that aggregates servers, storage, networking tools and hypervisors to create a shared pool of physical and virtual resources.

• Data center derby heats up

  Network thoroughbred Cisco jumps into the blade server market. Server stallion HP adds security blades to its ProCurve switches. IBM teams up with Brocade. Oracle buys Sun. And everybody courts that prize filly VMware.

• Cisco, EMC, VMware form private cloud pact

  The current ratio of IT spend on maintaining IT systems against innovation has become unsustainable according to EMC’s Australian president, David Webster.