David Needle

PALO ALTO, Calif. — How big is the security threat facing IT? It depends who you ask. At an event here at the Churchill Club, a panel of security vendors agreed it’s serious, but emphasized different aspects of the challenges ahead. SonicWall (NASDAQ: SNWL) CEO Matt Medeiros offered a cautionary note, warning that IT security […]

Add the “Web” as an official, university-sanctioned science and field of study. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in Troy, N.Y., has announced it now offers the first undergraduate degree program in the U.S. devoted to the interdisciplinary field of Web Science. In addition, RPI will offer a master’s concentration, in “Information Technology and Web Science.” RPI said […]

The immense popularity of Twitter among consumers has helped make real-time, albeit brief communication feeds more broadly accepted. Socialcast is one of several business-oriented companies to offer a Twitter-like service to the enterprise. In its latest release, announced Wednesday, Socialcast now integrates its new Socialcast Ease (an abbreviation of “Enterprise Activity Stream Engine”) platform with […]

The spread of social networks in the enterprise is happening at a far greater rate than is generally believed, according to a report just released by network security firm Palo Alto Networks. The company warns that the broader use of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, which have had their share of security issues, […]

Google’s ambitious plan to test deployment of an “ultra high-speed broadband network” in select markets has resulted in more than 190,000 individual and over 600 community requests to participate, as the responses pour in just hours ahead of Friday’s deadline for site proposals. When Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) unveiled the plan last month, it said it […]

There’s speeding ticket fast, there’s racetrack fast and then there’s the vehicle being built by North American Eagle that it hopes will break the world land speed record of 763 miles per hour (MPH). If it gets there, computer maker Lenovo should be pretty happy with the publicity since its computers played a key role […]

Someone at Google must be watching the March MadnessNCAA basketball tournament, because that was quite a good head fake move the company made on the Chinese government. After declaring it was prepared to shut down its Chinese search engine rather than adhere to continued censorship restrictions on search results, Google surprised everyone by taking a […]

It’s going to be a very busy week in IBM’s legal department. It has been accused of antitrust activities by a French software company and an executive caught in an insider trading scandal may be close to settling his case. TurboHercules, a provider of mainframe emulator software in Paris, France, filed an antitrust complaint with […]

Are enterprise users of Google’s cloud-based applications in China in for a stormy ride? Google apparently felt compelled to address the issue in a blog post on Tuesday — not surprising given the widely publicized state of its rocky relationship with the Chinese government and its recent decision to stop abiding by the government’s censorship […]

Apple’s iPhone may have become a surprise hit with business users, but it’s path to success should sound familiar to computer history buffs. Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) first big product, the Apple II, debuted as a home computer popular for playing games and educational software. Later, sales to business picked up exponentially in the early 1980s […]