Spotlight Features

Breaking development news from iPhone or BlackBerry rarely goes unnoticed. The recent announcement of new developer-friendly tools for the BlackBerry platform at the RIM Developer Conference was no exception, generating interest and debate over what it all means in the battle of the smartphones. Whi...

A turf war is going on in the mobile applications market as various companies try to carve out a foothold. The players include handset vendors such as RIM, Palm, Apple, LG and Samsung; mobile operating system developers like Google with its Android platform; software vendors such as Microsoft; and w...

Ten years after national commercial platforms for mobile commerce were launched in the Philippines and Japan, the United States is slowly beginning to creep into the field. Residents in rural parts of the Philippines and other developing nations routinely pay bills through their smartphones, while p...

Many consumers are still afraid of shopping online, and it's not hard to see why, with reports of fraud, identity theft, data loss and other security breaches regularly making the news. The fact is, though, online shopping is safer than ever before, and new and emerging security technologies, method...

It's no secret: We just don't watch TV commercials like we used to. We change channels, or, if we're watching a DVR-recorded show, we skip over them entirely. Like everything else, commercials are migrating online. This brave new world of online commercials sometimes resembles the old TV model, b...

Most business executives only spend money when they foresee a reasonable return on the investment, unless there is some other compelling reason for the expense -- like keeping them out of jail. To a large extent, the development of governance, risk management and compliance technologies was spurred ...

A rose by any other name can raise quite the stink, making the act of localizing Web sites to fit foreign cultures all the more thorny. Even if the product is as sweet as ice cream, it's possible to leave a bitter taste in consumer's mouths. "Ben and Jerry launched their 'black and tan' flavor of ic...

What's hot, and what's not? And how does an e-commerce concern turn it into cash? Knowing Internet trend patterns is not enough. Small e-commerce companies have to be able to act on the information they obtain in order to capitalize on it. When they do not move quickly enough, they may find themsel...

There's a rumor that honor exists among thieves, but outside of Robin Hood, no one considers them a bunch of do-gooders. Yet there may be a bright side to their shadowy work, at least in terms of enterprise software. Why has Microsoft, a company known to be almost brutal in its license-protection pr...

Lacing a shoestring budget with enough green to get your startup up and running takes some finagling. Still, it can be done. If you can't find investor backing right now, then turn to alternative funding routes. You may want to start with your own hidden assets to find the cash you need. One example...

Funny thing about economic disasters: They tend to spawn a bevy of new businesses. It's not that a recession is the best time for pie-in-the-sky thinking; rather, it's when pie-in-the-mouth issues become most pressing. "The tantalizing successes of some startups, coupled perhaps with the rise in une...

The end of mainstream support by Microsoft for Windows XP ended on April 14. That deadline came and left with barely an audible groan from the minions of enterprise, small business and consumer users of the decade-old operating system. The steadfast legions of corporate Windows XP users -- and the M...

Think of the ideal software asset management system as a monitor that displays what exactly drives your business operations. It provides a readout of all the software installed throughout the company's computer systems, and much more. SAM programs also help IT departments rein in duplicate or redund...

As the business use of mobile devices such as laptops and smartphones proliferates, IT departments are scrambling to implement adequate security safeguards both inside and outside company walls. The cost of implementing security measures is problematic for many small-to-medium-sized enterprises, but...

Cloud computing is a hot tech growth category that shows no signs of cooling. These are still early days, though, and companies that are experimenting with this computing model are doing so in a piecemeal fashion, or on a case-by-case basis. The result, for some firms, is a mishmash of IT functiona...