Computer Software

October 6, 2008

Visual Computing Will Change Your Life

Remember when your computer screen looked flat, filled with boring old letters and numbers, when your info-tech life was about nothing more than e-mail, word ...

October 3, 2008

Storage Startups Turn Cache Into Cash

Other than the availability of bigger boxes (or clear, plastic ones) it's hard to point to big changes in the way we store our stuff. Shifts in data storage are ...

October 1, 2008

Again! Tech That Doesn't Work Won't Let Us Work

Yes, I am an angry guy. I yell at other drivers. I roll my eyes when I have to stand in line for more than two minutes. I complain about Wall Street's greedy ...

September 30, 2008

Intuit Taps Hewlett-Packard and Google for Advice

As first-year CEO Brad Smith tries to reshape software maker Intuit for the online age, he has opened his Rolodex and is cribbing ideas from some tech industry icons. ...

September 29, 2008

Fixing Microsoft: A How-To Guide

Other than another profitable quarter, Microsoft (MSFT) has little to celebrate these days. The company is falling sadly behind, serving fewer ads, video clips, search...

September 27, 2008

Can Browser Plug-Ins Be a Business?

For as long as I can remember, I have been highly skeptical of the concept of browser plug-ins as a business. Whenever I'd learn of a browser plug-in startup fetching ...

September 26, 2008

Moving Money Online Stills Needs Work

Despite the acceptance of credit cards and services like PayPal, the issue of getting money from one person to another online still offers opportunities for ...

September 25, 2008

Oracle Dives Headlong into Hardware

Larry Ellison kicked off his annual speech to Oracle (ORCL) customers by comparing the engineering behind his new America's Cup racing yacht to Oracle's products. ...

September 25, 2008

Tracking 'Social Entrepreneurs' Gets Easier

There's plenty to love about organizations that focus on solving the world's poverty and health problems—but their impact is often hard to measure. That can make...

September 19, 2008

Oracle Flies High Above Wall Street's Carnage

Turmoil in American banking and recent gains by the U.S. dollar have left investors jittery over the potential impact on tech companies such as Oracle (ORCL). The ...

September 16, 2008

Tech Stocks: No Safe Haven

Amid the rash of bad news emanating from Wall Street, investors could have yet another setback to stew over. Technology stocks, once a haven from the storms roiling ...

September 16, 2008

Is the U.S. Losing Its Edge in Tech?

There's no place like the U.S. when it comes to creating a thriving tech sector. Or is there? The U.S. still has the world's most competitive information technology ...

September 15, 2008

For VMware, an Uncertain Future

In Las Vegas later this week at VMworld, a trade show that celebrates the red-hot technology known as virtualization and it most visible proponent, VMware (VMW), many ...

September 5, 2008

VCs Back Tools to Look Inside the Cloud

Enterprise software, which has gone from running on the computer to being hosted in a corporate data center, is now moving out to nebulous pools of servers called ...

September 5, 2008

HP's 'End Run' Around Windows

The carefully crafted ecosystem of tech companies built around Microsoft's Windows operating system is showing signs of strain. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), a longtime ...

September 3, 2008

Google's Browser Puts the Cloud to Work

It was nearly a decade ago when a then-young Marc Andreessen, the wunderboy founder of Netscape Communications, first talked about the concept of the browser pushing ...

September 3, 2008

Microsoft Will Cut Xbox Prices in the U.S.

Microsoft (MSFT) thought it would steal a march on the competition when it launched its Xbox 360 video-game console in late 2005, a year before rivals could get out ...

September 2, 2008

Will Google's Browser Hurt Firefox?

In response to the news that Google (GOOG) is releasing its own browser, code-named Chrome, I decide to call John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, the folks behind the ...

August 29, 2008

Making Software Demos Productive

Here are a few things, in no particular order, that this small business owner (and die-hard Phillies fan) would rather do than sit through a software demo: Shave my ...

August 28, 2008

Cell Phones Make Headway in Education

Cell phones have long been anathema in the classroom, banned as a potential distraction, at best, and as a possible vehicle for cheating, at worst. But lately, ...

August 25, 2008

Trulia's New iPhone House Finder

House hunting? Forget the listing agents and classified ads. Now you can find homes for sale with a few taps on a smartphone. Trulia, one of the Web's most visited ...

August 19, 2008

Workday: The Next Software Power?

Ever since veteran software entrepreneur Dave Duffield launched his new startup, Workday, a year and a half ago, people have wondered if it could become the next ...

August 18, 2008

Open Source: An Open Question for Red Hat and Others

Software supplier Red Hat is racking up growth figures that much of techdom might envy. Sales rose 32%, to $157 million, in the quarter ended May 31, and profits ...

August 11, 2008

Will Cisco Take on Google and Microsoft?

Cisco Systems (CSCO) reported its fiscal fourth-quarter 2008 financials last week, but while the San Jose (Calif.)-based networking giant beat Wall Street estimates, ...

August 11, 2008

How to Make Money off Free iPhone Games

Can developing free software for mobile phones be a business? It can if you're Illusion Labs, a fledgling company in the Swedish port city of Malmö. Illusion Labs was ...