James Maguire

In the old days, say 2006, the term cloud computing referred to essentially one thing. To use the cloud, you accessed software over the Internet – “over the cloud.” The applications were always located in a remote location, sort of like Dick Cheney. A couple years ago I interviewed Tim O’Brien, director of Microsoft’s Platform […]

Bjarne Stroustrup is a leading figure in modern software development. As the designer of the C++ language – used in everything from the Google search engine to the iPhone – his contribution has impacted countless development projects. After 24 years as a researcher at Bell Labs, in 2002 Stroustrup became a professor at Texas A&M […]

(Comment on this article at the bottom of the page.) About a year ago I attended an Interop IT trade show in New York City, and I was struck by the difference between the main show upstairs and the Outsource World show downstairs. Upstairs was the classic tech trade show in all its gaudy glory: […]

(Comment on this article at the bottom of the page) It was with no small alarm that I perused the monthly Dicetech job report. Published on November 11, it showed that Dice listed 75,640 IT jobs. That seems like a nice healthy number – until you realize it typically hovers around 90,000. Still worse, looking […]

(Comment at the bottom of this page: What’s the best netbook?) Also see: Top Netbooks Compared: the Eight Best Netbooks(May 2010) And: Top Netbooks: the Eight Best Netbooks Compared(April 2009) And: One Guy, Three Netbooks (a review of three netbooks) Among the six top netbooks, what’s the best choice? It all depends. Regardless of brand […]

He might be called the international rock star of computer security. Having testified before Congress and given well-regarded speeches the world over, when Bruce Schneier talks about security, experts listen. A prolific author, he has penned articles for publications ranging from Wired to The Guardian to the Sydney Morning Herald. His books include Applied Cryptography, […]

Also see: 2010 IT Salary Guide And: IT Salary Survey, January 2009(gives comparative numbers between ’08 and ’09.) The 2009 IT Salary Guideindicates that average starting salaries will increase by 3.7 percent over 2008 levels. This modest boost – a step down from last year’s 5.3 percent increase – reflects the toll that today’s gloomy […]

Oh, the unfairness of it. Take a look at the list of the most popular Linux distributions. Topping the user rankings? Ubuntu, of course. Based on the DesktopLinux survey (from 2007) or the current Distrowatch list, it runs easily ahead of the other options. The unfairness arises when you look at the Linux distros that […]

The virtualization market inspires a lot of speculation about the elbow-in-your-eye competition between the various players. Who’s pulling ahead and who’s running behind? For example, is market leader VMware, having lost a passel of key staffers, about to suffer some erosion? (The chattering class seems to think so.) Will Microsoft, once again late to market, […]

As venture capitalist Ed Sim takes my call, he glances quickly at the stock market. The Dow’s dizzying whipsaw motions and the accompanying deluge of dark headlines is unnerving investors small and large – including Sim. “It’s frightening out there,” he says, observing only half-jokingly that the sky appears to be falling. But Sim reassures […]