Eric Lundquist

While big data is getting all the headlines, small data is the next big thing. Big data and the value associated with combining and culling vast structured and unstructured data sets for business insights is a worthwhile but, as the name implies, big undertaking. It may be too big for all but the largest enterprises […]

One event was in Milan and featured a product no consumer will ever see, but all will experience. The second was in Berlin and featured a family of consumer products, which are a primary reason the PC industry is racing toward a brick wall. One city has great food; the other has great beer. I […]

In 2011, newly minted Nokia CEO Stephen Elop sent a 1,300 word internal company memo comparing the company’s phone business to the plight of a North Sea oil worker facing the frightening choice of remaining on a fire-engulfed oil platform or taking a chance and jumping into the frigid waters. In the memo, which in […]

I attended VMworld virtually this year. This means I stayed on the East Coast, while on the West Coast the 10th annual show—with the motto Defy Convention—unfolded for me on video, news reports and live blogs. Since VMware was all about virtualization before embracing the cloud and software-defined data, a virtual trip to San Francisco […]

Now that Steve Ballmer has announced his retirement (and added $800 million to his bank account by doing so), the analysts have rushed to fill the vacuum created by sizing up potential candidates and offering opinions on how the company should rearrange itself. The U.K.-based Guardian has gone to the point of offering a list […]

Chief marketing officers have picked up a hefty chunk of the enterprise technology budget, and now they have to take a leadership role in technology selection and acquisition. The old methods of tech marketing: build awareness, capture leads, nurture those leads and eventually toss the leads over the marketing wall to the sales force, have […]

After a marathon PowerPoint product introduction day at Microsoft, a group of tech journalists, myself included, was invited to join Steve Ballmer at a Mariners baseball game over at Safeco Field. I don’t remember the exact date, but it must have been after 1999 as that is when the team moved to Safeco. What I […]

Microsoft really started on its course toward great fortune and power when Windows 1.01 arrived in 1985. Since then, Microsoft and Windows have been indivisibly intertwined. There were indeed earlier prototype versions of Windows, and there were lots of other graphical user interfaces, including those from Apple, Atari, Quarterdeck and IBM. But Windows propelled Microsoft […]

When the chief marketing officer, the human resources manager, the vice president of sales and the chief finance officer all tore off chunks of the technology budget, the obituaries for the chief information officer position were many and morbid. A corporate executive without budget is soon a corporate executive without a job went the thinking. […]

“Klaatu barada nikto” was an early form of voice-based authentication and one that for techies and science fiction movie fans quickly moved into pop culture. The phrase was used in the 1951 film “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” and if that command had failed, then the giant robot Gort would have wreaked havoc on […]