PC and Components: Interviews

Saar Gillai, named head of Hewlett-Packard's Cloud operations in January, is on the hot seat.

John Swainson has one of the more challenging jobs in the tech industry right now. As president of Dell's software division, he's charged with sorting through all the software Dell has acquired and organizing it into coherent offerings that can further its effort to become a more profitable, software- and services-driven company.

As co-president of Oracle, Mark Hurd is tasked with selling an ever-increasing array of new software and hardware products, such as the Exadata database machine and Fusion Applications, while figuring out how to keep the company's vast installed base happy and fending off competition from the likes of SAP.

Since its introduction, the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface has created a fair amount of controversy. UEFI was created through an industry consortium as an evolutionary step up from BIOS, the simple firmware long used when starting a computer to initialize all the components and load the operating system. Among its advanced features, UEFI includes an option called Secure Boot, which requires that any software used before the operating system starts, or after it shuts down, has been signed by a certificate authority.

For Dell Software CIO Carol Fawcett, "BYOD" is not about being an expert on every mobile device in the world; it's about giving workers secure access to the apps and data they need on whatever device they are using.

Intel has a lot on the line this week as the chipmaker hosts the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. So it's an opportune time to catch up with the company's CEO, Paul Otellini, and to pepper him with questions about Windows 8, the future of the personal computer, the rise of tablets, and the course that Intel has charted for itself.

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor's big interest these days is "the mobile wave," which refers to a re-ordering of technology and modern life through the proliferation of iPads, smartphones and the increasingly sophisticated software that runs on them.

Intel completed its multibillion-dollar acquisition of McAfee almost a year and a half ago, and this week McAfee co-President Mike DeCesare spoke with Network World senior editor Ellen Messmer about what the merger of Intel's chip-making capabilities and McAfee's security expertise is expected to bring down the road.

Day two at Microsoft TechEd 2012 was all about Windows 8. CIO.com caught up with Windows corporate VP Antoine Leblond, who discussed why CIOs should test Windows 8, why developers should love it, and why we'll all be touching our laptop screens sooner than we think.

Hewlett-Packard has gone through a rough spell lately, what with weak PC sales, declining profits, an embarrassing CEO scandal involving sex harassment claims and dubious expense reports, and another CEO (Leo Apotheker) getting the boot after less than a year on the job.

With the superhigh-resolution third-generation iPad selling like hotcakes, and a refresh of the MacBook Air expected soon, Windows-based laptops are seemingly becoming a dying breed in this "post-PC," Apple-dominated era.

After a crazy year for HP that included a failed tablet, a hasty decision to abandon the PC business (a decision now abandoned), and a CEO shakeup, the company seems eager to get back to business as usual.

In April of 1995, Steve Jobs, then head of NeXT Computer, was interviewed as part of the Computerworld Honors Program Oral History project. The wide-ranging interview was conducted by Daniel Morrow, executive director of the awards program.

Intel’s Phil Cronin is a passionate believer in technology’s influence on society as connectivity pervades all corners of the globe. He speaks to NADIA CAMERON about his industry heritage and experiences, channel evolution and why ICT is so important.

Earlier this year, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak accepted the position of chief scientist at start-up solid state drive company Fusion-io. It's the first time since 1972, when he worked in Hewlett-Packard Co's calculator division, that he's held a technologist's position for a company that wasn't his own.

Mark Hennessy speaks candidly on transforming the IT organization at IBM, fostering a culture of innovation, managing IT during the financial crisis, maximizing the value of social networking tools, and taking advantage of an imminent technological game-changer.

Craig Barrett spent decades using his business skills to make Intel the world's most powerful semiconductor company. He has now turned his attention to an even bigger challenge -- spreading computers and education throughout the developing world.

Can you tell us about MPA?

This time last year HP was the toast of the hardware vendor town. In 2007, it had become the world’s leading PC vendor and was rewarded for its channel consistency with the ARN Hardware Vendor of the Year award.

After spending most of his career in large multinational organisations, Raj Sharma decided to start-up his own small computer services business, Pentaq, 15 years ago. He’d already been general manager of distribution organisation, Tech Pacific, in Hong Kong as well as the director of its Asia-based offices, and spent some time with NEC Corporation in the 1980s. Pentaq has since expanded into PC assembly, technical services and software development. Sharma spoke to ARN about the advantages and challenges of running your own business, adapting to change and moving into the Indian market.