Enterprise IT

Coordinated Care Models in Digital Health
May 25, 2013

Coordinated care models emphasize the basic relationships between patients and doctors, focusing on the continuum of care. The models reward doctors for the outcome of care instead of pure volume. The two dominant models are the patient-centered medical home and accountable care organization. Patient-centered medical home has enjoyed broad market interest since 2007.

Yahoo Pulls PlayerScale Under Its Umbrella
May 24, 2013

Yahoo hasn't been playing around when it comes to acquisitions. Its latest, announced Tuesday, is PlayerScale, which makes software infrastructure for cross-platform gaming. Four-year-old PlayerScale has built a sizable audience, and it could fit well with Yahoo's new direction. "This deal is intriguing for a couple of reasons," said tech analyst Charles King.

SAP Seeks Autistic Employees
May 23, 2013

German software heavyweight SAP plans to recruit hundreds of people with autism in a quest to staff employees who "think differently." Autism affects people's ability to communicate and interact socially but has the knock-on effect of creating repetitive -- to the point of obsessive -- behavior. This makes autistic people particularly adept at analyzing data and picking up on details.

White House Pulls Back the Curtains on Big Data Project
May 22, 2013

The U.S. government is awash in data that is collected, stored and disseminated by federal agencies to fulfill their public service missions. However, the existence of huge amounts of information within the government presents a major profit-making opportunity for commercial firms. The Obama administration has now launched a program to make federal data resources much more available.

IBM Suits Up Watson to Tackle Thorny Customer Service Problems
May 21, 2013

IBM on Tuesday announced that it will offer Watson -- its artificial intelligence software package that won the Jeopardy game show -- as a customer service solution called "Watson Engagement Advisor," a cognitive computing assistant that rapidly learns, adapts and understands a company's data.

Microsoft Packs Xbox One With Home Entertainment Power
May 21, 2013

Microsoft has officially unveiled the Xbox One, promising it will usher in a new generation of games, TV and entertainment. The One comes a dozen years after the original Xbox video game console debuted, and eight years after its best-selling Xbox 360 proved that Microsoft was a serious contender in the gaming arena. The reveal took place at an event at its Redmond, Wash., campus on Tuesday.

Congressional Investigation Scopes Apple's Web of Tax Havens
May 21, 2013

A series of subsidiaries spanning numerous countries have helped Apple avoid billions in United States taxes, congressional investigators reported Monday. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., head of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is looking into Apple's suspected transgressions, said that Apple "sought the holy grail of tax avoidance."

Getting the Best Out of IT Partnerships, IBM-SAP Style
May 21, 2013

There's no shortage of partner initiatives at most annual IT vendor events, but that was especially apparent at SAP's recent Sapphire NOW conference in Orlando, Fla. In large part, it's simply the nature of the event beast. Vendors work for weeks or even months on conference-related announcements, hoping to garner the attention of energized, enthusiastic attendees.

Marketing, Big Data Tech IPOs Get Rousing Market Welcome
May 20, 2013

Marketo and Tableau Software are having strong launches as public companies, indicating investors are excited about the growth in enterprise software markets that target niches such as Big Data and marketing automation. Tableau Software, which designs data visualization software that helps businesses manage information, trades under the appropriate ticker symbol DATA.

Virtual Testing Trims Real World Costs and Delivery Times
May 20, 2013

When you're a top Internet service provider in Turkey, and you deploy scores of applications each year, you have to find an efficient testing method that ensures the apps are working properly across all infrastructures. TTNET, with six million subscribers, found that service virtualization was the best solution.

A New Approach for Blocking Zero-Day Threats
May 18, 2013

Cybercriminals use zero-day and unpatched application vulnerabilities to install data-stealing malware on corporate endpoints because these are -- and will continue to be -- an issue with virtually all software applications. Zero-day exploits that take advantage of unknown vulnerabilities are the hardest to defend.

Dell's Weak Q1 Earnings Throw Fuel on Buyout Fire
May 17, 2013

Dell's quarterly earnings fell short of Wall Street expectations this week, leading to more questions about whether or not shareholders will accept Michael Dell's buyout offer and regroup as a private company. The PC maker reported a net income of $130 million, or 7 cents per share, during its most recent quarter.

InsideView Provides New Insights Into Sales Leads
May 17, 2013

InsideView earlier this month debuted a new marketing offering housed on its InsideView CRM Intelligence Platform. This first iteration of InsideView for Marketing focuses on automated lead enrichment capabilities, said Marc Perramond, VP of product. It was built with an eye to enhancing a company's lead records with social, media and financial information.

New Yorker Launches Strongbox Source-Protection Service
May 16, 2013

The New Yorker has launched Strongbox, an anonymous system for providing the publication with information, based on the open source DeadDrop program developed by the late Aaron Swartz and Kevin Poulsen. Strongbox can be thought of as an extension of the mailing address printed in small type on the magazine's inside cover, said The New Yorker.

Google Takes Maps to Next Level
May 16, 2013

Google Maps, already the de facto standard for online and mobile maps, is breaking new ground with added capabilities announced on Wednesday at the Google I/O Conference in San Francisco. Maps will get 3D views, speech recognition, enhanced voice search capabilities and will leverage artificial intelligence. Google Maps for mobile is also being enhanced.

Cisco's Data Center Sales Spark Q1 Earnings
May 16, 2013

Cisco's quarterly earnings report beat Wall Street expectations this week, giving investors a hint of confidence in the constantly evolving tech industry. The networking company reported a net income of $2.48 billion, or 46 cents per share. That's up from the $2.17 billion it earned during the same time last year. Revenue was up 5.4 percent to $12.22 billion.

Square Stand Lets Small Retailers Put Their iPads to Work
May 15, 2013

Square announced Tuesday it would reach out to retail outlets with its new Square Stand, an iPad dock that can handle business transactions and customer analytics. The mobile payments processing startup said small and medium-sized businesses would be able to collect customer loyalty information when they ring up sales. Square Stand replaces the cash register.

Google Tears Down the Storage Walls
May 14, 2013

Google has consolidated the storage allowances for its various products. It will now provide 15 GB of free storage space for use across Drive, Gmail and Google+ Photos. Before, Google gave users 10 GB for Gmail and 5 GB to be used for Drive and Google+ Photos. Google is also updating its Google Drive storage page with pie charts displaying how those 15 GB are being allocated.

Budget Roadblocks Stymie Federal IT Managers
May 14, 2013

Government information technology managers will no doubt spend every nickel of the Obama administration's 2014 proposed IT budget of $81 billion. They will also likely be dissatisfied with the business environment that affects IT acquisition and deployment. For starters, the proposed 2014 budget for IT, which actually shows a small gain versus anticipated 2013 spending, is not a sure thing.

CRM's Stairway to Stardom
May 14, 2013

Although the acronym "CRM" has been around for a long time, most people have no idea what it means. That's kind of a shame, because they brush up against the effects of CRM every day in their interactions with the businesses they patronize. As a result, when I say I write about CRM, I'm often asked to explain what it is. That leads me to think a lot about a practical definition of "CRM."