Anne Chen

You might think that Tony Scott, chief technology officer for IS and services at General Motors Corp., would be kissing fancy wireless initiatives goodbye. After all, the news released by the automotive company to Wall Street on Oct. 18 wasnt good. Hit by the slowing U.S. economy and the soaring cost of consumer incentives, the […]

Despite highly publicized security breaches this year such as Code Red, a surprising number of organizations are not planning to increase security spending over the next 18 months, a recent survey says. According to a report released Tuesday by Jupiter Media Metrix Inc. in New York, more than 46 percent of security budgets will shrink […]

Say youve spent millions of dollars and four years deploying and upgrading an ERP system, only to emerge from the trenches to find out that the rest of the world has moved on to wireless technologies. What do you do? If youre Chuck Hennon, CIO at The Lamson & Sessions Co., you start developing a […]

Youve just spent $280 million and the last six years executing an ERP-centric IT strategy only to find that, in some important ways, its incompatible with the companys e-business push. Meanwhile, the slowing economy is producing softening demand for your companys products and a need to cut costs. Oh yes, and lawsuits and restructuring charges […]

“Enrich your sex life!” “Receive a free listing on the International Executive Guild CD-ROM!” “Accept credit cards today!” If theres one thing Mark Yankowskas doesnt need, its another e-mail message trying to sell him some must-have product. Thats why, after too many mornings spent wading through spam in search of legitimate e-mail, Yankowskas, IT director […]

At RoTech Medical Corp. the decision came down four years ago: Let the penguin in. “Were always looking for better, faster and cheaper,” said Chief Technology Officer Albert Prast, in Orlando, Fla., who decided to use Linux to run a number of applications, including purchasing and billing. “By using Linux, we were able to use […]

Post-dot-com conventional wisdom has it that, among independent business-to-business e-marketplaces, first-mover advantage was a myth and profitability a pipe dream. Try telling that to Paul Bourke, CEO of Altra Energy Technologies Inc. The Houston-based company launched an independent online energy trading exchange—now known as Altra Marketplace—in 1996, long before the word “e-marketplace” had been conceived. […]

This summer, one year after friends regaled him with stories of how hot his skills were and of the unprecedented hiring packages he would receive, David Kim entered the job market only to receive a chilly welcome. “Recruiters would look at my résumé, smile grimly and say two fatal words: hiring freeze,” said Kim, a […]

CIOs frustrated by increasingly expensive, sometimes kludgy software would be well-advised to pay attention to the status of the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act as it wends its way through state legislatures. The legislation, already enacted in two states, could make it harder for enterprises to fight ISVs that attempt to sell software that doesnt […]

Desperately needing a major software upgrade but unwilling to pay through the nose for a new enterprise software license on which his vendor insisted, Dave Waterman recently found himself between a rock and a hard place. After weeks of negotiations in which he attempted—unsuccessfully—to wring price concessions out of the vendor, CompuWare Corp., Waterman, the […]