Spotlight Features

The open source market is decidely hot right now, from software to support and services. Recently, venture capital firms have upped the ante, investing millions in open source-focused companies with the hopes of cashing in like JBoss did, when Red Hat scooped it up for a tidy US$350 million in June....

The press has been replete with complaints from companies that have to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley. Some of the criticisms were based upon the outsized cost of compliance. Other criticisms revolved around the difficulty and intricacy of compliance, especially to Section 404, Management Assessment of ...

Wireless networking continues to make inroads in metropolitan and rural areas across the U.S. as the development of 802.1x technologies and associated standards forges ahead. Wireless broadband and VoIP have both gained momentum and are moving inexorably forward. It's now possible to connect to the ...

Today it seems like every owner of a decent size database now calls itself a "specialized vertical search engine." I suppose there is some clever marketing logic in positioning oneself as such given the wholesale adoption of search as a business tool, and of good search results as a very cost-effect...

You have to give credit where it is due, and today that means kudos to Oracle. More than 40,000 customers, analysts, press and others have converged this week in San Francisco for Oracle Open World, the annual user conference. It is mind-boggling to think that the 40,000 people in San Francisco re...

Security-conscious online shoppers have long feared that thieves will snatch their credit card number and other personal information right out from under their fingertips as they nervously click the "buy now" icon on retailers' Web sites. The proof is in the numbers: 80 million consumers who use the...

As we approach the end of the year, thoughts traditionally turn to the future. I thought I'd get an early start. Near term we have the widely rumored launch of the new Apple Newton, uh, I mean iPhone. A little further out we have the emergence of true telepresence -- which brings the possibility tha...

Internet start-ups seeking venture capital support may be in luck, as a second coming of sorts seems to be in full swing for Web-based technology firms, which enjoyed a seemingly endless supply of cash during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. In September alone, General Catalyst Partners invested...

As the nature of Internet threats has morphed, IT systems professionals and security providers have adapted their response tactics. Increasingly, organizations are developing comprehensive security strategies and implementing a variety of online and on-demand security applications and services acros...

North Korea's detonation of a nuclear bomb has made Silicon Valley, Calif., leaders even more eager to offer their expertise to help spread freedom and peace. Technology can jumpstart this quest at home and abroad, but not alone. A human element has to be present as well. Technology is often viewed...