Spotlight Features

It wasn't long after the launch of Linden Lab's Second Life back in 2003 that companies and organizations around the globe began to sit up and take notice. The prospect of millions of potential customers -- all flocking to the same destination and congregating there -- is enough to whet the appetite...

Sarah Betesh's career in customer service began in box office call centers at venues such as the Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia. She moved on to Tickets.com and Vertical Alliance, at one point becoming a call center manager. However, in spite of her success, Betesh left her call center care...

The end of mainstream support by Microsoft for Windows XP ended on April 14. That deadline came and left with barely an audible groan from the minions of enterprise, small business and consumer users of the decade-old operating system. The steadfast legions of corporate Windows XP users -- and the M...

Fidelitone Logistics works with large retailers to manage their inventories and ship consumer goods worldwide. Mike Schoenfeld, an executive VP at Fidelitone, recently gave a group of executives from a venture capital firm a tour of the company's operations. No, the VC model hasn't changed so radica...

Think of the ideal software asset management system as a monitor that displays what exactly drives your business operations. It provides a readout of all the software installed throughout the company's computer systems, and much more. SAM programs also help IT departments rein in duplicate or redund...

As the business use of mobile devices such as laptops and smartphones proliferates, IT departments are scrambling to implement adequate security safeguards both inside and outside company walls. The cost of implementing security measures is problematic for many small-to-medium-sized enterprises, but...

Cloud computing is a hot tech growth category that shows no signs of cooling. These are still early days, though, and companies that are experimenting with this computing model are doing so in a piecemeal fashion, or on a case-by-case basis. The result, for some firms, is a mishmash of IT functiona...

RFID has been on a bit of a roller coaster ride. It started with a bang a few years ago, when Wal-Mart and the Department of Defense issued their edicts that all suppliers would need to get on the RFID bandwagon within a set time frame. Well, that deadline has come and gone, and uptake has fallen we...

A while back, someone convinced businesses that if they outsourced work overseas, costs would fall off a cliff. The Wall Street lemmings jumped, believing they could fly, but instead plummeted to the depths of a global recession. Many of them are still falling, yet they continue to outsource their w...

Recent developments in robotics are promising to reshape supply chain fundamentals. Specifically, robotic devices are improving warehouse operations to a degree unforeseen only a short while ago, by automating a slew of repetitive, difficult and usually monotonous tasks. Applying this technology t...