David Haskin

This week, InstantMessagingPlanet is going back to the basics. We’re pleased to bring you a series of articles covering the fundamentals of enterprise instant messaging and what you need to know as an IT decision-maker: on what exactly enterprise IM is, why and how best to leverage it, considerations in purchasing an enterprise IM solution, […]

Spring follows winter, objects fall down and enterprises standardize on Microsoft Office. Nobody questions the first two aphorisms but some information technology (IT) professionals are considering ignoring the third. “We used to use Microsoft Office, but we’ve migrated everybody to OpenOffice,” said Scott Testa, chief operating officer of Mindbridge, which develops software for intranets. OpenOffice […]

Moore’s Law, which states that the power of microprocessors will double roughly every 18 months, has been a constant in the technology industry since 1965 when Intel co-founder Gordon Moore first coined it. But is Moore’s Law still relevant when information technology (IT) shops consider when — and whether — to replace mainstream desktop PCs? […]

The selection of SAP’s CRM 3.0 as the enterprise application product of the year is a testament both to changing times and to how far SAP has brought the product in a relatively short time. “We looked at SAP’s CRM when it first was coming out (about four years ago) and we could tell it […]

As a managing partner in a network consulting and engineering firm, Jeff Cornejo is technically savvy. That’s why, as part of a client’s information technology (IT) strategy, he recently sent an employee to a coffee shop. “He’s a sales rep for a large manufacturing company that does over-the-Internet training every Friday,” explained Cornejo, managing partner […]

In the annals of information technology, it’s not unusual for mail servers to go down. The trick, according to Greg Jackson, CIO for the University of Chicago, is to learn from the experience. Jackson lived that lesson late last year when the university’s mail system stopped functioning. It took about a week to completely solve […]

There is a distinctive sound production managers hear when a manufacturing process stops. It’s the sound of money going down the drain. Joe Webb’s client, a pleasure craft manufacturer, was hearing that dreadful sound too often. “Changing the manufacturing run from, say, making a five-seater (boat) to making a 12-seater was difficult, and that made […]

Two years ago, wireless carriers and many industry analysts claimed that remote wireless access to enterprise data would revolutionize how companies do business. Sales would increase dramatically when sales representatives could check inventory and submit orders from customer sites in real-time. Field service technicians could handle more calls if they could instantly check whether parts […]

New employees at Hoffman Construction in Portland, Ore., receive a written policy that limits their personal use of the Internet during work hours. The policy says, among other things, that the company can monitor workers’ activities. “They have to sign the policy before they can get access,” said Brian Muir, the company’s network and systems […]

Sometimes, the “next big thing” disappears from the spotlight only to quietly emerge as a widely adopted fact of life. That describes the rise of extranets in the enterprise since the mid-’90s. “There are a lot of extranets in place,” said Ray Valdes, research director of Gartner, Inc. “They (enterprises) are chugging away, building them […]