Stories by Galen Gruman

It's never been easy to access - much less analyse - the vast amount of data available to, for example, determine changes in customer behavior or sentiment, optimize routing of telephone switches based on call patterns, or analyze financial portfolio pricing or risk. Traditional business intelligence systems rely on highly structured (and usually transactional) data stored in massive data cubes and data warehouses, which requires significant upfront work to decide what is being analyzed and to ensure all the data is consistent with that goal - that is, you know what you are looking for. But that approach isn't useful for exploring trends or patterns, especially in external data that wasn't formatted for your needs.

Last summer, it looked like Apple was finally going to make its Macs and iPhones enterprise-capable, giving hope to those who wanted a more stable, less failure-prone option at the office.

As the smoke clears from Steve Jobs launching the Apple iPad, missing details suggest there's less to Apple's tablet than meets the eye.

Very soon, we'll know whether Apple has changed the world again. The company has scheduled a press conference for 1 p.m. Eastern time today. For months now, the rumor mills and blogosphere have been abuzz with speculation that Apple will debut a new class of device based on the iPod Touch and an updated version of the iPhone OS that uses a larger screen (10 or 11 inches diagonal, perhaps 7) to provide a multitouch, gesture-based media slate for e-books, electronic magazines, Web browsing, video playback, and apps.

Palm has stayed very quiet since its releases of the Palm Pre and Pixi devices this summer, which debuted the WebOS that was at one point seen as a key rival to Apple's iPhone.

This month's purported "iPhone killer" is the Android-based Motorola Droid, which Verizon began selling in the United States on Nov. 6. Unfortunately, it has some real flaws that make it less enterprise-friendly than the iPhone, so it won't kill off the iPhone in business. But the Motorola Droid is a surprisingly good device for individuals and businesses that uses Gmail, POP- or IMAP-based e-mail, or Exchange with no ActiveSync security policies.

Everyone, it seems, has a mobile SDK. Apple has one for its iPhone. Likewise, Google, Microsoft, Palm, and RIM each have one for their mobile OSes. Then there are the third-party, multiplatform mobile dev toolkits such as Rhomobile Rhodes, Nitobi PhoneGap, Appcelerator Titanium, and Ansca Corona, plus the Eclipse Foundation's forthcoming Pulsar.

There's been one promised iPhone killer after another -- the Google Android-based Dream, the RIM BlackBerry Storm, the yet-to-ship, years-delayed Windows Mobile 7 -- but none has given it worthwhile competition to date. Now Palm has its Pre, a device that looks to be a serious contender for the best next-gen mobile device crown.

The new iPhone 3.0 OS is now old news, but does its enhancements overcome any advantages that the BlackBerry has over the iPhone? In May, I pitted the BlackBerry Bold in a head-to-head competition against the iPhone 3G, which handily beat RIM's business standard in most areas. After all, the iPhone 3.0 OS enhances the e-mail, calendar, and search functions that many BlackBerry users focus on and that IT loves about the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).

A year ago today, Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows XP, no longer selling new copies in most venues. The June 30 kill date for XP followed a six-month outcry from users about Windows Vista, with demands that Microsoft keep XP available alongside Vista for the many users who were frustrated by ease-of-use, compatibility, and retraining issues.

When Apple unveiled the iPhone 3.0 OS and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard at WWDC recently, I was struck that one of the most significant additions to Snow Leopard came from the iPhone 2.0 OS: support for ActiveSync and native Microsoft Exchange.

In comparing the RIM BlackBerry Bold to the Apple iPhone 3G, after a month-long test of each, I declared that it was time to bury the Blackberry, as it was mediocre in its signature mail functions and pathetic in next-gen mobile capabilities such as Web browsing and applications. I got many heated replies, such as this one from reader Mortys11 (a comments handle, as with the other names cited): "Who is this guy? He must be on the Apple payroll because any tech writer with half a brain would never claim that the BlackBerry is an inferior e-mail device." (Sorry, I do not work, and have never worked, for Apple. I do use a Mac, but until Vista I had used Windows XP.) Smalpre says, "I would have to declare the writer of this article a completely incompetent nontechnical person that obviously has never had a 'real job' in IT."

It's the OS that won't go away, despite many enterprises' avowed distaste and Apple's own public disinclination to support enterprise usage. And yet, the newest Mac OS -- Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, due to be released later this summer -- has two major changes aimed directly at business users and the IT staff that supports them.

In a surprise announcement, President Obama has named the first federal CIO of the US: Vivek Kundra, CTO of the District of Columbia. (He has yet to name the position he did promise he would create: the first national CTO.) So who is Kundra, and what might his appointment mean for the federal government's direction for and spending on technology?

New Year's is a great occasion for taking pause to reassess priorities, needs, and wants. As we enter what looks to be a trying 2009, such a pause is even more critical. IT resources will be limited and business pressures higher. But that doesn't mean you withdraw or go into reactive mode. In tough times, being clear on your priorities is even more important, as everything you do is more critical. So InfoWorld asked its CTO Council member and its cadre of expert contributors for their top New Year's resolutions to give the tech industry a list that we hope will help you make the most of your 2009 priorities.