There's No i in Barack Obama, But There Is One in Bailout
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

If I don't hear the word stimulus again this year, I will be just fine, thank you very much. The past year has been stimulating enough, and I would like for all of us to get back to business. Apparently, to get there is going to require some economic stimulus, rather than the kind you get from listening to the news for hours on end, as I do. Like the kind that President-elect Obama outlined last Thursday in a speech at George Mason University in Virginia. READ MORE >

Layoff Rumors Panic IBM Workers; Nothing Confirmed
by Dan Burger

For many IBM employees, last week was torture. Rumors have been swirling that jobs are on the chopping block and that close to 16,000 workers will become victims of a one-two combination punch from the economic downturn and IBM's continual moves to lower its costs and extend its string of profitable quarterly reports. READ MORE >

Application Modernization: Money in the Bank
by Dan Burger

You might think that the combination of do-more-with-less business planning and the dire economic reports that dominate the daily news coverage would cause IT budgets to fizzle like last year's uncorked bottle of champagne. That's not exactly true, even though three out of four organizations are targeting IT spending as a good place to make cuts. You can't forget about the one in four companies that are moving their business plans ahead by investing in IT. READ MORE >

Mad Dog 21/21: Shoes for Cheeses
by Hesh Wiener

In 1967, a turbulent America gave birth to the Youth International Party and its pie assassin, Aron Kay. The following year, Yippies led the havoc at Chicago's Democratic National Convention. They set a high (or low) watermark for protests of American policy that lasted 40 years. But in 2008, in Baghdad, a reporter named Muntazer al-Zaidi became the World's Most Notorious Hurler of Insults when he lobbed a pair of shoes at President George W. Bush: soles of a new regime. How impolite! Still, the IT establishment might actually gain from some clever irreverence. READ MORE >