David Needle

Data centers aren’t cheap affairs to operate, and a new report from IT research firm Gartner has found that energy expenses are the fastest-rising aspect of their total cost. Gartner concluded that energy expenses comprise roughly 12 percent of the overall cost. So what are enterprises to do? Gartner has some ideas, and it all […]

Social networks, friend or foe? It’s a question IT has been wrestling with since the booming popularity of Facebook, Twitter and other consumer-oriented social media services spilled over to the enterprise, bringing with them security and management concerns. Yammer is one of a number of companies that have tailored social media services to address enterprise […]

Google admits that the so-called conversation view may have been Gmail’s “most hotly debated feature,” but now it’s no longer mandatory. Google acknowledged that email traditionalists had been slow to warm up to the feature, even though it helped reduce clutter in the inbox. Now, Gmail users will have the option to toggle between the […]

Tech industry blog TechCrunch typically reports on wheeling and dealing inside Silicon Valley, but today the site itself was in the news. As Datamation reports, AOL announced that it’s buying the TechCrunch blog and associated properties that include a conference business. The deal adds TechCrunch, a feisty, fiercely independent blog property, to the well-established AOL, […]

Research In Motion made it official today, unveiling the tablet that everyone in the tech world was expecting at its BlackBerry Developers Conference. With its new device, dubbed the PlayBook, RIM is taking direct aim at the enterprise market. Corporate users who are already set up with the BlackBerry Enterprise Server will be able to […]

It’s hard to look at the mobile app space and not see the major device makers playing catch-up to Apple. Research In Motion, which was perhaps a bit late to the part with its App World marketplace, has unveiled a host of changes to its store that could make it more attractive to mobile developers. […]

Apple didn’t invent the personal computer, but it was a prime mover in making them popular. It’s starting to look like the same can be said for tablet computers. A relatively sleepy category of device used mainly for data collection and certain vertical applications, tablet computers have become a hot category after the iPad’s debut […]

The so-called consumerization of IT might have made work life more interesting, but it’s also raised some serious security questions. Namely, can popular devices like the iPhone and any number of others be trusted with corporate data behind the firewall? Cisco has an app for that. The company this week is out with its AnyConnect […]

Mobiles users are a funny lot. While they aren’t necessarily unhappy with their current service, most customers would jump at the chance to move if a little better deal came along. Oracle’s survey of 3,000 mobile service customers shows that there is little customer loyalty. As long as users save money and stay safe, they’ll […]

What do Oracle and Apple have in common? Aside from deep pockets and an imposing market share, they have CEOs who are fond of solutions that offer integrated software and hardware. Speaking atOracle’s OpenWorld conference, CEO Larry Ellison compared his company’s new Exalogic product to Apple’s iPhone, saying both are “engineered the right way.” Ellison […]

Going green is big business these days, but companies looking to measure their energy consumption across the enterprise find that it’s not always the easiest thing to measure. SAP is taking a crack at it, releasing its Carbon Impact OnDemand application, which promises to take the inventory of a company’s environment impact across its facilities. […]

Salesforce.com calls Chatter 2 the next generation of enterprise social collaboration. The tool is designed to take advantage of the social features such profiles, status updates, real-time feeds and others made popular by Facebook and Twitter. Chatter 2, which boasts 13 new features, is designed to let enterprises collaborate on more than just documents and […]