Integration and Services

Europe's lawmakers have asked for feedback on its proposed new rules on allocating state aid to fund broadband networks.

U.S. President Barack Obama ordered the Stuxnet cyberattacks on Iran in an effort to slow the country's development of a nuclear program, according to a report in The New York Times.

Google has asked European Union regulators to investigate alleged collusion between Nokia, Microsoft and so-called patent trolls.

While some online services are stepping up their efforts to protect private user data from government requests, there is plenty room for improvement, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said on Thursday. It is time for all companies that hold private user data to make public commitments to defend their users against government overreach, the foundation said.

Google on Thursday began helping users in China navigate the country's strict censorship systems by highlighting search terms that will likely result in page errors, as part of an update to the company's search engine. But the new feature could be arriving too late to help the search giant improve its presence in the country, according to one analyst.

How to retain profitability within the channel is an issue vendors, distributors and resellers have to constantly stay focused on

Cloud computing is being touted as a completely new way of delivering technology, yet many of the solutions on offer sound surprisingly similar to traditional outsourcing. So what is the difference between the two?

Managed services providers (MSPs) attending ARN’s recent roundtable claimed a proactive approach around delivering technology could be a business enabler for end users. It also allowed the service provider to move up and talk to higher levels of management, which brought about a better understanding of the business requirements and demands.

SMBs have always been thought of as the sweet spot for managed services providers, but many are also experiencing strong take-up in the mid-tier through to enterprise space.

It may be the silver lining in an otherwise stormy economy, but that doesn’t mean the managed services game is not without its challenges. TREVOR CLARKE reports.

2011 was a bad year for natural disasters. Several nations were rocked either by earthquakes, tidal waves, or floods. There was even a nuclear accident. But has the tumultuous year convinced businesses to bolster their disaster recovery?

Five key points CIOs should know when considering big data

One small step for man, a giant leap for robot-kind.

The two primary forms of public cloud computing, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), are both growing dramatically in popularity. Over the last few years, the primary focus of the IaaS providers has been on offering the basic compute and storage resources required to run applications.

Managed security services have been growing in popularity over the past several years, and the latest task enterprises are looking to offload to an outside provider is security information management.

Name: Harry Sverdlove

Kiandra IT: The fifth in a series of 10 interviews with channel-relevant technology companies that have achieved significant growth over the last three years

Ultra Serve: The third in a series of 10 interviews with channel-relevant technology companies that have achieved significant growth over the last three years

Insentra's Ronnie Altit talks about some of the challenges with starting a business and the importance of building trusted relationships with partners

With the rapid evolution of technology and the gradual expansion of Australia’s NBN, significant developments are taking place in areas such as the digital delivery of medical service. Hot on the heels of CSC’s acquisition of iSoft, ARN spoke to CSC Australia national director for health services, Lisa Pettigrew, on what lies ahead for eHealth in Australia.

I recently participated in ARN’s Partner Profitability roundtable, which fostered spirited discussion around some of the business and profitability issues facing the channel, as well as new profit opportunities going forward.

As the economy worsens, the prospects for outsourcing and offshoring improve. Throughout 2008, the key word for the economy was “uncertainty”. While facing uncertainty, CIOs avoided signifi cant changes to internal organisations or operations including evaluating or implementing outsourcing. Most outsourcing initiatives are driven by a strong need for change and “economic uncertainty” hindered that need.

The financial fraud perpetrated by Satyam Computer Services executives could trigger near-term disruptions across the outsourcing and IT industries. Ramalinga Raju, the company's founder and chairman, resigned last week. He has admitted to inflating Satyam's cash balances and the credit amounts it was owed while understating its liabilities. This scandal has many ramifications for Satyam's customers as well as those of other outsourcing companies.

No two IT shops conduct business in the same way: CIOs report to various executives, project approval processes are all over the board, and personnel policies are vastly different. Unlike other professions, IT doesn't seem to have a common set of basic principles across companies.

Open up any newspaper, online media site or industry report and you’ll hear about the effects of the economic downturn. Last week, the Australian Financial Review published a report on the looming recession, pointing out Australia’s gross domestic product grew by just 0.1 per cent in the third quarter of the year. The report also found the market had begun losing momentum before the global stock markets went into freefall.

Moving tends to be stressful and migrating apps and files from a Windows XP PC to a Windows Vista system is no exception. Belkin's Easy Transfer Cable for Windows Vista ($79.95) and Laplink's PCmover for Windows Vista ($89) can do some (though not all) of the heavy lifting involved in transferring programs and data to a new PC, but their help varies in quality and quantity.