The UltraTech Zone

Some days it seems like Microsoft still has a lot to learn about being a team player on a global stage where customers and regulators are interested in open standards and interoperability. They recently got spanked with both the ISO and the IEC while lobbying to get their OpenXML document format established as a global, open standard.  In ...

Some days it seems like Microsoft still has a lot to learn about being a team player on a global stage where customers and regulators are interested in open standards and interoperability. They recently got spanked with both the ISO and the IEC while...(read more)

I've been falling behind on my Harvard Business Review reading, in recent months, but I finally made some time to catch up on the July/August issue, and came across an awesome opinion article entitled, ''Productivity Is Killing American Enterprise'' by Henry Mintzberg. You can find the article here, or an extended version of it on Henry ...

I've been falling behind on my Harvard Business Review reading, in recent months, but I finally made some time to catch up on the July/August issue, and came across an awesome opinion article entitled, '' Productivity Is Killing American Enterprise '' by...(read more)

The issue I speak of relates to how many changes and new features should go into a new release of their software product.  If Microsoft adds lots of new functionality, then customers and analysts conclude that the likelihood of bugs within the new code is high and so they avoid product adoption for months or years or until several service ...

The issue I speak of relates to how many changes and new features should go into a new release of their software product. If Microsoft adds lots of new functionality, then customers and analysts conclude that the likelihood of bugs within the new code...(read more)

This has been a fun month with all the Daylight Saving Time patching from a myriad of vendors.  (I wonder if anyone has done a study to see how much energy we burned preparing to save three more weeks of daylight?) Although Microsoft is the favorite whipping boy in these situations, they weren't the only vendor that was slow to provide solid ...

And not only UPS, according to the report... ''The cancellation by UPS, four months after rival FedEx Corp. also scrapped its 10-plane order, leaves Airbus with no orders for the superjumbo freighter — dealing a new blow to its A380 program, whose two-year delay has €5 billion (US$6.6 billion) off profit forecasts for ...

These days, you can find a whole lot of discourse in both technology and business periodicals, on the need for technologists to be able to interface with the business, and not just operate a stereotypical geeks in a backroom or basement somewhere.  In many ways, I agree that to ensure long-term success, a technology professional should ...

Some good news to start out 2007: Signs are pointing to a healthy new year for information technology. The job market for I.T. workers is expanding, reflecting a strong U.S. economy and an unemployment rate that is hovering near its lowest level in five years, according to job placement firm Robert Half Technology. And a ...

I just finished reading an informative article by Peter Coffee on why it is important for technologists not to get overly caught up in the coolness of technology such that they overlook the needs of their constituents, the business users. In particular, one paragraph in his article stands out: Arguments about one programming language versus ...

It shouldn't be news to anyone who has been in Information Technology for more than a couple years now, but more and more folks are suggesting that an IT career will no longer be insular or self-contained.  In many ways, this is very good news, as IT has often been relegated to the "back room" within the business.  While ...

According to the story posted at eWeek, Apple Computer is likely to restate earnings because they've uncovered some more accounting irregularities.  They've even suggested that any reports they've provided since 2002 are suspect. Yow. I'm going to have to do some research to see how frequent this sort of thing is with major companies, ...