John Pallatto

SAN FRANCISCO—Driving complexity out of IT operations is a major theme of this weeks Gartner Inc.s Symposium/ITxpo here, But attendees remain skeptical that they can use technology or managerial skills to make any headway against what is a persistent and insidious problem. There seems to be no end in sight to the increasing complexity of […]

SAN FRANCISCO — Now that most IT budgets are growing again, CIOs are going to have to focus on delivering the most innovative services that contribute to robust corporate business growth, according to a Gartner analyst. IT budgets in most industries will grow 2.5 percent to 3 percent in 2005, according to Mark McDonald, a […]

A group of independent yoga instructors has quietly settled a lawsuit that waved the banner of the open source software movement in their effort to practice their fitness discipline free of the copyright claims and license fees demanded by an enterprising yoga master. While it is always positive when people can settle their differences without […]

IBM demonstrated that it is winning major converts to its service-oriented architecture for software integration by announcing deals Tuesday with the Firemans Fund and Lawson Software. Firemans Fund Insurance Co., based in Novato, Calif., has awarded IBM a $94 million, 10-year contract to modernize its IT application development and maintenance operations into an on-demand infrastructure […]

SAN FRANCISCO—The public is suspicious of most computerized identity verification systems because they are based on a jumble of policies and technologies that in many cases leave them vulnerable to identity theft, according to Kim Cameron, identity and access architect with Microsoft Corp. Cameron, speaking at the Digital ID World Conference here, said the computer […]

It didnt take long after Siebel Systems reported painfully poor quarterly earnings before the rumors started that the CRM software company was going to become the latest target in Oracles relentless buying spree. News reports circulating on the Web on Friday indicated that Oracle and Siebel were actively talking about making a deal. For the […]

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Commercial software developers need to focus more than ever on quality and get their potential corporate customers involved earlier in the application design process. This was some of the advice offered by four CIO-level executives speaking at the Sand Hill Groups Software 2005 conference here Thursday. Corporate IT departments discretionary budgets for new […]

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Juniper Network Inc.s acquisitions of two Web performance optimization technology companies this week provide some of the “piece parts” required to improve the quality, security and reliability of Web applications, Chairman Scott Kriens said Wednesday. There is still a lot of development work to be done in terms of improving the design of […]

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—In the years since the post-2000 IT recession and dot-com meltdown the software industry has been buffeted by business consolidation and job losses. However, at the Software 2005 conference here Tuesday there were signs that a new generation of startup software companies is emerging with new ideas and products to replace at least […]

Touting fast performance and new security features, Opera Software on Tuesday launched Version 8 of its Web browser for Windows and Linux. The browser is available for free download from the Opera Web site in four languages: English, German, Dutch and Polish. Additional languages will follow. Also on Tuesday, Opera released a beta edition of […]