CIO

Is Sears’ choice of a former IT executive as CEO a sign of the times?

The recent news that Sears named 46-year-old Louis D'Ambrosio, a former IT executive at IBM and Avaya, as its new CEO strikes me as a big deal. Just a few weeks ago, Peter Breunig, who oversees IT architecture at Chevron, was telling me that chances are "slim" that an IT leader would become CEO of...

Phasing in desktop virtualization

Desktop virtualization gives the business peace of mind. That was the bottom line when I asked Todd Bruni, director of client services for Christus Health, about the benefits of building a virtual desktop infrastructure (

An IT exec’s agile quest leads to cloud services

The IT department is moving at the speed of light. Performance monitoring tools enable IT managers to ferret out and fix network problems in seconds, tasks that previously would...

Egypt’s CIO lesson: We use IT tools in ways unintended by toolmakers

After the news broke that Egyptian citizens had made history in the blink of an eye, I wondered briefly if Mark Zuckerberg would be considered for a Nobel Peace Prize. Farfetched, yeah. But you can see where I was coming from. His

Debate continues over the definition and strategy of private clouds

In trying to come up with a common definition of private clouds, I've been speaking with a wide spectrum of IT executives, analysts and systems integrators. Many of them contributed pearls of wisdom to my story about what the term

The Feds tap NIST to accelerate adoption of public cloud standards

How serious is the Obama administration about cloud computing? Federal CIO Vivek Kundra has assigned the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) the task of "accelerating" the government's secure adoption of cloud computing. NIST is being called on to lead "efforts to develop...

What’s Tiger Mom got to do with IT innovation at Chevron?

In the service of our new series on CIO innovators, I spoke this morning with IT executive Peter Breunig at Chevron Corp. about the American energy company's approach to IT innovation. Chevron is...

Converged infrastructures promise to simplify private clouds

Just when you thought you understood private clouds, along comes converged infrastructure. You wouldn't be wrong to wonder, are they the same thing?

A private...

The enduring value of starting cheap in offshore IT outsourcing

Being the lowest-cost service provider of offshore IT outsourcing pays off in ways that go beyond being -- well, the lowest-cost IT service provider. Rock-bottom prices attract new customers, who in turn bring capital that improves the infrastructure and, in time, the quality of the outsourcer's...

FUD or foresight? A debate continues over risk in the public cloud

The topic of risk in the public cloud elicits a strong emotional reaction from IT executives. In response to one of my recent stories about the WikiLeaks episode, I heard from readers on both...