Category: BizTech

Businesses are hiring more and more information-technology pros. But these workers’ confidence levels are at an all-time low.

Tech workers aren’t seeing a lot of lions in the mirror these days

Over the last year, employment for IT pros is up 10%. It’s one of the few bright spots in an economy that is otherwise shedding jobs. […]

A new Microsoft ad intended to combat negative opinions about the company’s Windows Vista operating system is turning heads online. But it isn’t part of the real onslaught Microsoft is planning on Apple and other critics.

Microsoft’s kind-of-hard-hitting new ad

Since its release in early 2007, Microsoft has tried to market Vista as more secure, more reliable […]

During the dot-com bubble, businesses raced to develop Web sites that could be accessed via mobile phones, the idea being that life without the ability to trade stocks from the back of a taxi wasn’t worth living. We all know how that turned out. But despite the earlier failures, Web software for cellphones is now […]

SAP will close down a subsidiary that provided technical support to businesses that used software sold by rival Oracle. But don’t write off the third-party-support business model just yet.

TomorrowNow customers will have to get their tech support somewhere else

When Oracle bought management-software maker PeopleSoft in 2005, rival SAP had a bright idea: It bought […]

Hackers’ preferred method of breaking into businesses these days is exploiting flaws in Web browsers, word-processing documents and other software. The reason these applications are vulnerable to attack: No one wants the responsibility for making sure this software is secure.

To write better code

The man pointing the finger at, well, everybody is Howard Schmidt, a security […]

It’s a federal offense in the U.S. to use someone else’s unsecured wireless network for illicit purposes. It’s a crime in Germany, too – committed by the network owner.

Is this a way to send an enemy to jail?

We’ve always thought that so-called Wi-Fi squatting was largely a victimless crime. We’ve done it, and, based […]

Two years ago, when France Telecom decided to form a unit to co-produce movies in Europe, industry insiders were left in a quandary as to why one of FranceÂ’s largest telecommunication providers would make such a move. A phone company getting into film?
The move was part of an ambitious plan to differentiate the communications […]

The FBI hailed the arrest of an alleged computer hacker known as “AKILL” as progress against “one of the most serious cyber security threats” facing the civilized world. But a judge this week dismissed the charges and now authorities are preparing to offer the hacker a job.

Really good hackers have more cards to play

In […]

Three tech giants – IBM, Microsoft and Google — reported earnings today. The lessons: 1) It’s a good time to sell technology overseas and 2) We’ve yet to figure out this whole Internet thing.

Like a good martini, news for tech stocks was mixed

IBM reported that revenue jumped 13% from the year-ago quarter to $26.8 […]

Won’t it be great when America wises up and starts generating a big percentage of its electricity from the sun? Well, one of Silicon Valley’s major players in the field sees a snag.

A solar cell

Applied Materials, a maker of machines used to manufacture chips and flat-panel displays, is starting to get some traction in selling […]