John Taschek

When the economy started heading south, vendors of CRM (customer relationship management) and SRM (supplier relationship management) products began to focus. Whereas the vendors once attempted to inflict stringent business processes on organizations, theyre now more flexible. Whereas solutions were once their own departmental silos, they are now integrated modules. Category judges considered these aspects […]

Three weeks ago, Cisco and Linksys were just about the most dramatically different companies you could find. Cisco sold expensive networking gear to enterprises, service providers and carriers; Linksys sold low-margin, high-volume gear to end users, mostly through the retail channel. So it was somewhat of a shock when Cisco announced the purchase of Linksys […]

Wireless warriors confused by todays 802.11 standards have a new ally: Netgears WAG511, a wireless PC Card that supports two bands and all the major wireless standards, including 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g. I expected compromised performance from this $129 all-in-one wireless card, but performance met or exceeded that of the best cards Ive tested. In […]

To many, Microsofts full-fledged launch of .Net Compact Framework last week sets up yet another battle with Sun Microsystems. This time its over mobile devices. Unfortunately, this battle is one of perception. The two companies are as far apart on how to develop for mobile devices as they are regarding legal issues. Microsofts mobile strategy […]

Intel Corp. promised two things with Centrino, the companys brand name for its mobile processor and modular chip set: higher performance with better battery life and a wireless module that integrates well with the chip set. Tests show that Intel is close to delivering on these promises. The first thing to note is that the […]

Intel Corp. promised two things with Centrino, the companys brand name for its mobile processor and modular chip set: higher performance with better battery life and a wireless module that integrates well with the chip set. Tests show that Intel is close to delivering on these promises (see test results here). The first thing to […]

Intel is finally getting its mobile computing strategy right. After years of pushing processor performance as a feature thats more important than battery life, Intels Centrino delivers better performance without sacrificing battery life. The secret sauce comes from a series of components that Intel has branded Centrino, which may sound like a late-1960s-model Oldsmobile. Centrino, […]

With consolidation in the application server space and incredible pressure from IBM, not to mention the lousy economic climate, BEA Systems Inc. finds itself battling not only vendors 100 times its size but also public perception and an analyst community that tends to write it off. But BEA has survived all this—and has even grown—through […]

Roxio is raising the bar on CD and DVD duplication with the ambitious release of Easy CD and DVD Creator 6. Roxio is targeting consumers with its tools, but there are enterprise uses for CD and DVD duplication. Organizations of all sizes need optical media backups of their data and programs as well as high-quality […]

First it was NetDocs, then it was XDocs and now its InfoPath. Microsoft envisions that someday InfoPath and the rest of the dominant Office suite will not only be ideal word processors and spreadsheets but will also be the leaders for connecting desktop clients to back-end business applications, no matter where those applications reside. This […]