Jenny Thomas
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Employment Up! IT Jobs Down?
October 15, 2012 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreJobs, and the lack of them, are big news in the United States. And by now most of us have probably heard that the Bureau of Labor Statistics had some encouraging news in its September jobs report, revealing the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent, marking the first time the jobless rate has been below 8 percent since December 2007. If that wasn’t enough to reinvigorate job seekers, the BLS also revised its July and August job reports, confirming the creation of jobs in those months was actually higher than originally reported.
Great news, on the surface, but the
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The Mobile Enterprise Management Software Market Is Born
October 8, 2012 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreWe’ve been warning you for years that mobile devices are poised to take over the world, and the rampant proliferation of smartphones and tablets has caused the analysts over at IDC to create a new market category for our little portable addictions.
The name of this new market isn’t exactly catchy or all that clear. “Mobile enterprise management software” sounds like a catch-all for any software that might fall into the mobile category. But then again, it kind of is. IDC explains that back in the old days (which in this case may have been last week), the mobile market
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IBM’s Rometty Takes Over As Chairman Of The Board
October 1, 2012 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreIt hasn’t quite been a year since IBM tapped Virginia M. Rometty as president and chief executive officer, and now comes the announcement from IBM’s board of directors that Rometty will take over as chairman of the board, effective October 1, 2012. Rometty succeeds Sam Palmisano, who will stay on as a senior adviser to the company until he retires on December 1, 2012. So as of today, Rometty is driving the Big Blue bus.
IBM CEO, president, and newly appointed chairman of the board, Ginni Rometty.
There is no doubt that Rometty, 55, is ready to take the wheel.
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Top CIOs Bring Home The Bacon, IT Salaries Flat As Pancakes
September 24, 2012 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreCorrected:
With the prices of gas, food, and energy all on the rise, an annual salary with six zeros in it could take a lot of pressure off the average American. It sounds outrageous, but that’s the range for the top chief information officers at some big corporations. The top salaries from 2011, the last year for which data is available, were recently revealed by Janco, a management consulting firm that monitors the IT job market.
While the annual salaries on the list of the top CIO earners would be like winning the lottery for those of us toiling
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Big Data Is The Big Winner At The U.S. Open
September 17, 2012 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreAndy Murray and Serena Williams may have dominated the courts at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, during the recent 2012 U.S. Open, but behind the scenes, the real action was being served up by IBM.
Sure, it’s easy for the average fan to get distracted by the tennis action, but to Big Blue, each serve, volley, and point is more than just an exciting play between athletes. To IBM, that action is big data.
“Big data is impacting so many aspects of sporting events, that it’s no longer a stretch to say
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JDA Software Reports Gains With Q2 Financials
September 4, 2012 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreSoftware license sales picked up for retail and supply chain management software maker JDA Software Group in the second quarter ended in June, rising 6 percent to just over $32 million and helping push up and overall sales for the company by 2 percent to $168.8 million.
During the Q2 earnings conference call, JDA president and CEO Hamish Brewer said the company saw some improvement in the first quarter in U.S. retail, which was good news after decline in license sales in North America in the retail market in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Software and subscription revenues were a
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Worldwide IT Outsourcing Fattens Up 2012 Spending Pie
August 13, 2012 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreWhen you slice a pie, you might save the biggest piece for yourself, or take just a sliver if you’re trying not to overindulge. In the predictions game, finding a glimmer of good news can also depend on how you slice up the overall picture.
The analysts at Gartner have taken another look at the worldwide IT spending pie for this year, and the slice that covers IT outsourcing looks like a good piece. According to a recent Gartner report, worldwide spending for IT outsourcing services is on pace to reach $251.7 billion in 2012, a 2.1 percent increase from
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Bleak Outlook for European IT Spending Through 2013
August 6, 2012 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreAmerica has been trying to claw its way out of the current recession for years now, so it’s easy to see where we might have lost sight of the fact that the United States is not the only place on the planet with financial woes. The debt crisis currently in swing across Europe is showing little sign of turning around, according to a recent information and communications technology (ICT) forecast from Forrester Research.
In the report, Forrester is predicting that ICT purchases by European business and governments will show an almost imperceptible 1.2 percent in 2012 in euros, which
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Linoma’s GoAnywhere Goes Global
July 23, 2012 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreLocation, location, location. We’ve all heard the line that location, which could also be interpreted as being in the right spot at the right time, is the key to success for many business. In the 21st century, businesses don’t have to let their physical location limit their success, but you still need partners, you still need feet on the street sometimes–particularly when there are language barriers.
Take Nebraska-based Linoma Software, for instance. Linoma’s headquarters is located in Ashland, a city with a population of less than 5,000, but with the IBM i platform being popular in Japan and other
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Continued Caution Sways 2012 Worldwide Spending Re-Forecast
July 16, 2012 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreThe analysts at Gartner continue to re-evaluate their worldwide IT spending predictions for 2012, and while the news is still better than last year, it’s not the economic recovery and bump in IT spending that we’ve all been hoping for.
“While the challenges facing global economic growth persist–the eurozone crisis, weaker U.S. recovery, a slowdown in China–the outlook has at least stabilized,” said Richard Gordon, research vice president at Gartner, in a statement covering the latest IT spending update. “There has been little change in either business confidence or consumer sentiment in the past quarter, so the short-term outlook is