Michael Hickins

IBM’s Lotus division is taking cues from important trends in the consumer space. It is poised to deliver new products for the enterprise that mimic features of Web 2.0, such as social networking, user-generated content and device-neutral mobile software. Sometime in the first half next year, IBM  will launch Dogear, a social networking tool patterned […]

The top 20 IT contracts awarded by the federal government in 2007 will be worth $120 million, or just half the value of similar contracts awarded in 2006, suggests a new study by consulting firm Input. The average ceiling value, the maximum possible value of the contract over its life, will also drop in half, […]

Microsoft  has filed an appeal of the $357 million fine levied by the European Commission this summer, the company said. The Commission fined Microsoft in July for failing to allow its rivals to interoperate with Windows and refusing to unbundle its media player from the Windows operating system. “The deadline for filing the appeal was […]

Ilog has rolled out a solution allowing line-of-business owners to take part in decision-optimization work that has thus far been the exclusive province of optimization experts. The Optimization Decision Management System (ODMS) allows executives to review predictive mathematical models in terms they can understand, and help translate strategic decisions into tactical and operational decisions. Thus, […]

Toshiba is recalling some 830,000 laptop batteries manufactured by Sony, the company said in a statement today. Coming as it does on the heels of recalls by several other laptop manufacturers, including Dell , IBM , Lenovo and Panasonic among others, you’d think the consumer electronics giant would be used to this kind of announcement […]

Congress is considering action to reform electronic voting machine guidelines only days before its members go home for the election season. At issue is whether local officials will be able to hold elections properly using direct-recording electronic (DRE) voting machines, and whether or not election results will be reliable. Testifying at a Committee on House […]

A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled yesterday that online file-sharing company StreamCast was guilty of “massive copyright infringement.” The verdict gives the entertainment industry a full sweep in its battles against file-sharing companies Grokster, Kazaa and now StreamCast. U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson granted the plaintiffs’ summary judgment and denied StreamCast’s motion for a […]

Like kids following in their big brothers’ footsteps, smaller enterprises often take their IT spending cues from their larger brethren. Dell  which introduced five new servers today in the hopes of capturing a larger share of the small and medium sized business (SMB) market, sees this trend encompassing even such enterprise-oriented strategies as server virtualization. […]

Congress needs to create a steering committee to straighten out its IT mess. That’s the principal recommendation of an expert witness testifying to the House Administration Committee this morning. Gartner analyst Larry Bradley told the committee that the House could reap the benefits of economies of scale and improved functionalities if purchasing decisions and management […]

Twenty-six million Americans of voting age got news or information about politics online this summer, an increase of almost 20 percent over the same period two years ago. That corresponds to 19 percent of adult Internet users, or 13 percent of all Americans over the age of 18. This is a high point in the […]

IBM  is not alone in thinking that the patent system is broken. But with a portfolio of over 40,000 patents and an estimated $1 billion in annual revenues generated by its intellectual property, Big Blue may have the clout to do something about it. The Armonk, N.Y., company today laid out new patent governing principles […]

Experts agree that Internet technology will continue expanding into the fabric of our lives like a drop of iodine into a glass of water. A study published by the Pew Internet Project shows sharp disagreement, however, on whether the effects of this evolution will be curative or toxic. The study surveyed 742 experts identified by […]