Eric Lundquist

Many and varied were the responses to my last two columns on outsourcing. Many were the readers who wished that I might experience firsthand the agony of seeing my job head across the ocean. Varied were the complaints of those who have seen their skills replicated overseas—complaints about the nature of the companies for which […]

Innovation. In defending Microsofts monopoly, Bill Gates said it was the goal of the companys product strategies. More recently, Hewlett-Packard boss Carly Fiorina championed innovation, rather than trade barriers, as the best counterweight to outsourcing. If innovation, like eating right and exercising more, is so good for us, how come we arent doing enough of […]

Vivek Paul, Vice Chairman of Wipro Technologies, the $1 billion India-based outsourcing company, told me a very interesting story. When his 1995-model car recently needed a repair, he dutifully clipped a coupon from a Silicon Valley newspaper offering 20 percent off the regular service rate. When told that even with the discount the rate would […]

We live in an increasingly impermanent world. Few things are built to last. And yet some things are uncannily permanent. Some things will remain; others will not. First, here are a few things that will go away: Spam. If you want to mark your calendar, 2006 is the year that Bill Gates predicts spam will […]

Which development platform—.Net or J2EE—will you adopt? Microsofts .Net Framework provides all the tools, tips and tactics you need—something possible only from a company with billions of dollars in its pockets and a real desire to woo developers—whereas J2EE is widely used among non-Microsoft developers and has support from some major vendors. Choosing between the […]

That company named Other continues to be the biggest PC vendor around. With the release of the 2003 PC shipment numbers, IDCs computer counters once again have Other on top. Worldwide, Other was in the lead with 53.3 percent, while second was captured by Dell at 16.9 percent. In the fourth quarter, the big news […]

Will the Roomba effect sweep away the outsourcing debate? Roomba is a robotic vacuum cleaner from iRobot, and that little robot skittering on your rug may point the way to your technological future—one where outsourcing doesnt hold quite the threat it now does. More on that in a minute. Right now, outsourcing is a great […]

There is nothing like a big, complicated, high-profile mission to shine the light of public attention on technology. No, Im not talking about Microsoft once again trying to get Windows to be the centerpiece of the home network. And Im not speaking of the latest anti-spam software, either. Im referring to NASAs Mars mission. Not […]

Crystal-ball gazing is not an exact science. In fact, it is neither exact nor a science. But it is fun, especially a year later when your selective memory allows you to champion your correct calls and conveniently forget the misses. With that in mind, here are a few guesses, in several key categories, for 2004. […]

The return of a pulse to the technology market after three moribund years was certainly the biggest story of 2003. Economic prognosticators put much of their effort into answering three questions. Are we in a recession? Are we coming out of the recession? How long will the good times last? However, far less analysis is […]