Spotlight Features

E-commerce suppliers face a difficult challenge. They must cultivate loyal customers, but that is becoming more difficult as the Internet enables consumers to roam freely from retailer to retailer. Now more than ever, the customer is in control, and that change is forcing many e-tailers to turn to c...

The fact that we pay the taxes that support the costs of government ought to make us the customers of the government, right? That seems logical, but often taxpayers and constituents are treated more like an annoyance than a valued customer. However, some government agencies are starting to see the l...

So, we know virtualizing the IT system will save a lot of time, money and effort, and we know there are lots of tools out there we can get from different vendors. Yet, as any savvy IT professional will tell you, introducing any new technology will bring about a host of new challenges. These range fr...

Even in a post CAN-SPAM world, where legal protections and technological advances give consumers more control than ever over their inboxes, e-mail remains a key component of many interactive marketing strategies. Commercial e-mail remains a cost-effective way to reach consumers, especially for busin...

Call center reps get a bad rap. They're expected to be constantly nice in the face of increasingly not-nice customer interactions, field the blunt of management's never-ending drive for increased performance, and solve every problem that randomly hits their line. It's no wonder the industry faces a ...

Give office workers familiar with the Microsoft XP operating system an opportunity to try the same navigational tasks at a Linux-based desktop. Then step back and wait for the reaction. First will come the surprised look. Then questions like "where did the command line go?" will soon follow. That's ...

The function of IT is to support business, and every IT decision must be business-driven. So, what kind of business benefits can virtualization provide? It can increase server utilization; help cut costs; let users leverage the multi-core processors common in data centers; give applications mobility...

Vox populi vox dei -- the voice of the people is the voice of God -- was supposed to represent democracy in action. Until now, however, the true state of democracy was perhaps best expressed by the saying "Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one." The Internet and associated technologies a...

Whither lies the true "doorway" to the Web 2.0 world? The search for this golden portal into the future Web has launched a mega-billion-dollar corporate competitive scramble with no complete solution in sight -- yet. Portals come in three basic varieties: horizontal portals like Google and Yahoo, ve...

Despite the overwhelming success of e-commerce, there are still consumers out there too terrified to click their cart through a virtual checkout. Are they just a silly-nilly group, nutty as a bunch of conspiracy theorists? Or are the rest of us just too naive to get it? Neither, it turns out. "There...