systems decision

ZDNet Resources

• sort by:
• Relevance
• Date
• Popularity

Introduction to BIT

This is the 1st excerpt from the second book in the Defen series: Business Information Technology: Foundations, Infrastructure, and Culture Introduction This book is designed for people who interact with, but do not want to become, professional information systems...

Tags: Information System, Bear, Computer, Business Owner, Systems Decision, Dick, Jane, Systems Culture, Productivity, Data Centers, Strategy, Storage, Hardware, Data Management, Management, Paul Murphy

Blog posts 2008-05-16

Additional Resources

Hardware 2.0 'Very Best Kit List' for Nov/Dec 09

These are consistently your most useful columnsI really look forward to these, especially since I'm thinking about building a new video editing machine. One that can handle full frame 1080 24p h.264 video. I can transcode it with cineform but unless you're doing a lot of color work, it's...

Tags: Processors, Nov/Dec 09, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Best Kit List, Hardware 2.0, CPU, hardware, Intel Corp., motherboard

Discussion threads 2009-11-03

What's the hurry? You can still see Miami from the plane.

Add another choiceHarry, you need to add another choice on your survey."If the climate [b]IS[/b] warming, it is part of a natural cycle and has very little to do with mankind's actions, and there is very little that we can do to affect it."another choice being added--Harry FullerFuller, why the...

Tags: launch-pad, global warming

Discussion threads 2009-10-31

Averatec D1130 All-in-One

The Averatec D1130 All-In-One is a stripped-down version of the D1133 we reviewed last month, and while this version cuts the price down to only $399, it also strips away many of the features that gave the higher-end model some value. With its puny 1.6GHz Intel Atom chip, 1GB of...

Tags: Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows, Netbooks, nettops & MIDs, Monitors & displays, Averatec Inc., D1133

Product reviews 2009-10-30

Acer Aspire Revo AR1600-U910H

Typically our challenges with the emergent Nettop category have been that real budget PCs cost just a little bit more and provide a dramatic performance uptick, and similarly priced Netbooks offer equivalent performance with the added benefit of portability. The Aspire Revo 1600's price tag alone answers those issues. ...

Tags: Wi-Fi, Performance management, Netbooks, nettops & MIDs, Wireless and Mobility, Semiconductors, Acer Inc., wireless networking

Product reviews 2009-10-30

Five reasons to deliver a virtual service, not a virtual server

What began as an interesting technological experiment has now become an opportunity for IT to shape its future, says Fortisphere's Lilac Berniker Commentary - As virtualization becomes an increasingly commonplace technology in the datacenter, the breadth of stakeholders in the virtual environment is growing. ...

Tags: Information Technology, Workload, Virtual Server, Server, Strategy, Management, virtualization, Lilac Berniker Fortisphere, Special to ZDNet, Lilac Berniker Fortisphere, Special to ZDNet

News items 2009-10-29

What the DoD now says about open source

I could just see a commander in the field ....having to wait for procurement to get a simple map through bids while his troops are getting shot up even though it is publicly available (oh wait, isn't that how the Chinese embassy got accidentally bombed?)Always use the best tool for...

Tags: Linux, UNIX, Operating systems, Cyberthreats, SECURITY, Spyware, adware & malware, U.S. Department of Defense, open source, OpenBSD, attack

Discussion threads 2009-10-28

Why is Microsoft opening up its Outlook file format now?

On October 26, Microsoft officials announced they were planning to open up the Outlook Personal Folders .PST file format and making it freely and safely licensable. What no one has said so far is why is Microsoft doing this now and who will likely benefit from the move. ...

Tags: Antitrust, Microsoft Corp., File Format, PST, Microsoft Outlook, E-mail, Groupware, Microsoft Office, Corporate Law, Office Suites, Software, Online Communications, Enterprise Software, Business Operations, Mary Jo Foley

Blog posts 2009-10-27

Is the cloud a better place for our data?

As consumers, we have two options of storing our digital data: locally or elsewhere in the cloud. IntraLinks' Mushegh Hakhinian says it's like storing your savings in a mattress or a bank. Commentary- Data loss is an all too common a theme in the news these days. The recent...

Tags: Bank, Password, Data Loss, cloud, storage, Mushegh Hakhinian IntraLinks, Special to ZDNet, Mushegh Hakhinian IntraLinks, Special to ZDNet

News items 2009-10-26

Survey: cloud interest grows triple-fold; cost may not be main factor

buble bust...anyone learns from 2000 and so IT burst?Current interest in private cloudsHi Joean interesting piece, and thanks for the link to my post? This current enthusiasm for private Clouds is also interesting? and I am left wondering how long it will continue.It's presumably a mix of security concerns (real...

Tags: Marketing research, cloud computing, survey

Discussion threads 2009-10-26

Windows 7: An impressive upgrade

Windows 7 review:Windows 7 review: 'New' OS is just Vista with small changesPerformance enhancements"We have already determined that W7 won't make your computer run any faster. And if you are upgrading from XP, it might run slightly slower, just as with Vista. ......But it's not really anything new. We hate...

Tags: Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Operating systems, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows Vista, Microsoft Windows, impressive upgrade, operating system, Microsoft Windows XP

Discussion threads 2009-10-21

Lenovo SL510

Without proceeding any further, I am about to make a guess: you have already decided whether or not you're buying a ThinkPad. The iconic brand, the unending combination of professional respect, solid features, and unabashed blandness, combine to make a product that has surprising appeal across the board, yet remains,...

Tags: Notebooks, Microsoft Windows 7, Processors, IBM ThinkPad, Intel Core 2 Duo, Lenovo Group Ltd., Intel Corp.

Product reviews 2009-10-16

Two Views of the Software Market

A Bridge Too Far? In a blogger briefing this week at SAP’s TechEd, SAP CTO, Vishal Sikka, drew a chart of the application software market and what new areas of technology are of interest to the firm. I’ve tried to reproduce his freehand drawing into the following...

Tags: ERP, Vishal Sikka, S-curve, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Enterprise Software, Software, Brian Sommer

Blog posts 2009-10-16

Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard: Benchmark performance showdown

iTunes? Quicktime?Let's see--- his tests were largely based on running two Apple apps. And imagine this! The Apple apps did better on Apple hardware. What a surprise!Not.Come on, guys. That's not a benchmark. That's an ad.Of course it is an adwhat else did you expect from a fan boy?Seriously, iTunes...

Tags: Operating systems, Digital music, Apple Inc., Apple-hardware, operating system, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, performance

Discussion threads 2009-10-16

Ellison rips IBM, shows off Sun-Oracle benchmarks, offers $10M prize

Ellison should have ripped M$ and Inhell tooIBM is less dangerous to the Oracle and the world than M$ and Inhell.RE: Ellison rips IBM, shows off Sun-Oracle benchmarks, offers $10M prizeFairly typical of desperation attempts, use wordsnot real proof through history."Unbreakable"And that one did not turn out too well...Your trolls...

Tags: Databases, Enterprise software, DB2 Databases, Oracle Corp., IBM Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., IBM DB2

Discussion threads 2009-10-12

Optimizing Enterprise Storage Total Cost of Ownership with IBM XIV

A high-end storage system's total cost of ownership TCO is like an iceberg: the vast majority of costs are hidden from view. Comparing systems by looking at obvious factors, like capacity and box price, may be easier. But taking a fuller look at the factors impacting IT budgets over a...

Tags: Enterprise Storage, TCO, IBM Corp., Roi/Tco, Finance, Managerial Accounting

White papers 2009-10-12

Clouds vs. Appliances

I still prefer DistributedWhen you set up the Namespace "properly" a sysadmin can handle both client and server machines - i.e. No gurus vs. grunts. With the same configuration on all machines, it is easy to bring machines up in short order. Client maintenance consists of 1) Reboot and then...

Tags: server, desktop

Discussion threads 2009-10-10

Yahoo pays its 'technical debt' with IT overhaul

Yahoo had a lot of "technical debt"---systems that most companies would call legacy infrastructure---and has it just about paid off. Sam Pullara, chief technologist at Yahoo, walked developers through its infrastructure changes over the last three years. The talk could have come from any enterprise that finds...

Tags: Information Technology, Yahoo! Inc., Sam Pullara, HBase, YQL, Cloud Computing, Virtualization, Open Source, Hardware, Larry Dignan

Blog posts 2009-10-09

Judge overturns $388m patent verdict against Microsoft

Horrible PrecedentA judge over turning what a jury has already ruled, is setting a very bad precedent. This basically means if a judge doesn't like the a way a case came out, he can simply change it. Which means, whats the point of a jury?As for their reasoning, a software...

Tags: patent verdict, Microsoft Corp.

Discussion threads 2009-09-30

Microsoft vs. Google: An e-mail showdown at L.A. City Hall

The city of Los Angeles has a decision to make. You see, the city's old school e-mail system is pretty outdated and in need of a major overhaul. But like most other municipal governments, the budget for new tech systems is pretty tight these days. And so, city officials have...

Tags: Google Inc., Los Angeles, City, Microsoft Corp., E-mail, Online Communications, Sam Diaz

Blog posts 2009-09-28