Stuart J. Johnston

Advanced Micro Devices, a principal counterpoint to Intel in the chip sector, reported fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday that narrowly topped analysts’ expectations. For the period ending Dec. 25, AMD posted earnings of 14 cents per share, ahead of the consensus forecast of 11 cents, and $106 million in net income. But amid a solid quarter, […]

The speculation that Microsoft would build a bridge connecting the Kinect gaming system with Windows PCs picked up earlier this month after comments CEO Steve Ballmer made at the Consumer Electronics Show. “We’ll support that in a formal way in the right time and, when we’ve got an announcement to make, we’ll make it,” Ballmer […]

Microsoft and HP have already forged a significant partnership that aligns two titans of the software and hardware sectors. And with a new announcement this week, the firms are doubling down on that alliance. Microsoft and HP have unveiled a quartet of new IT infrastructure appliances that aim to ease the pain associated with an […]

Microsoft is making its presence known at the Black Hat security conference this year, even before the thing gets started. Ahead of the event, underway this week just outside Washington, D.C., the software giant released a string of security tools it has been testing internally for wider use, in the hopes that they will result […]

For more on cloud computing and the enterprise, visit Internet.com’s new cloud computing site. “To the cloud!” That’s the slogan Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) been using of late in ads promoting its cloud services. It’s also a key strategic direction for the company. This week the software giant announced commercial availability of its next generation customer […]

The awaited first service pack for Windows 7 may not be far away, according to a posting on a Russian Microsoft blog. Late last week, a Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) TechNet blog, titled “Russian Windows Virtualization Discussion,” ran the headline “Released Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.” The rumor mill kicked […]

Many midsized businesses are planning to increase IT spending in the next 12 to 18 months, as budgets begin to clear, the economy continues to accelerate, and companies put increased emphasis on reaching out to their customers, according to survey commissioned by IBM (NYSE: IBM). The report, titled “Inside the Midmarket: A 2011 Perspective,” conducted […]

So tablets are on the rise, it seems. Of course, since Apple came out with its iPad, a host of other device makers have caught tablet fever. And that enthusiasm was certainly on full display at the recent Consumer Electronics Show. But where, then, does that exuberance over new form factors leave more conventional PCs? […]

The growth of interest and deployments of cloud computing isn’t surprising when you consider the need of IT departments to save costs and reduce the real estate and resources needed to grow traditional infrastructure. Now a new survey details the impact cloud computing projects are having on IT hiring, which turns out to be pretty […]

It seems a long time past when people thought of websites as a luxury or some geek-chic status symbol. Now, a Web presence is an essential for doing business, and an increasingly central vehicle for promotion, organizing, and sharing information. But not everyone is a master Web developer, nor does everyone have the money to […]

It’s hardly a secret that there’s no love lost between Microsoft and Apple. The two companies have long engaged in a more or less public feud, sniping at each other in advertisements, product launches and comments to the media. The latest front is the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, where Apple is seeking to trademark […]

Security best practices dictate that Wi-Fi networks should be locked down with a password. And that’s enough, right? Perhaps not, as attendees at the Black Hat security conference could learn in Washington, D.C., next week. A German security researcher has reportedly devised a way to marshal the power of Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud to overwhelm […]