IT management - News, Features, and Slideshows

Features

• 6 Globalization Tips: Managing IT in Emerging Markets

  Promote clear rules. Define which decisions are global versus which can be made locally.

• Why ERP is still so hard

  Steve Berg knows what intense pain feels like: The man has been Tasered, in fact-not because he ran afoul of the law, but as VP of IT at Taser International he's partaken in a corporate rite of passage. "It's the worst five seconds of your life," he says. "You cannot move."

• Boxtone releases 'user self-service module' for BlackBerry

  BlackBerry-monitoring software-maker BoxTone today released the BoxTone User Self-Service Module for BlackBerry. The new product is meant for corporate customers who want to cut BlackBerry management and support costs without decreasing BlackBerry deployment numbers or quality of service.

• Legal considerations for shared services

  Once IT leaders agree that they want to form a shared services outfit, the first thing they should do from a legal standpoint is determine the corporate structure that best fits the business model that participants have in mind, says Rob Scott, managing partner with the technology law firm Scott & Scott.

• The cost of data management

  One of my all-time favorite movies is All the President's Men. The best line in the movie is when Deep Throat (played by the great character actor Hal Holbrook) meets with Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and hears him explain how his investigation has hit a dead end.

• Managing IT atop Mount Washington

  On Mount Washington, the highest peak in the Northeastern US, the winds whip faster than they do in Antarctica, the bitter cold will freeze bare skin in seconds, and Steven Welsh tends to the IT infrastructure that meticulously records the mountain's extreme weather conditions.

• Are Management Training Courses Valuable for IT?

  After four days of potholing, moving barrels across imaginary ravines and trying to map-read their way around the countryside, the pressure on the group of trainees was beginning to tell.

• Yes, you can: How to initiate change your company can believe in

  As an IT professional, you don't often have the luxury of going with the flow. With businesses everywhere seeking both efficiencies and revenue growth, IT's mission is increasingly geared toward implementing and even spearheading many types of change.

• Advice for CIOs Struggling to Survive in Tough Times

  I always thought that I was lucky to be born in Brazil, but the real value of my ancestry became apparent to me only after I became CIO of General Motors Europe. As you can imagine, a lot of my energy was consumed by the process of managing a large, decentralized team that was both multinational and multicultural.

• Boss by day, gamer by night: IT leaders' favorite games

  Do video games stimulate the intellect? Are gamers more social and better equipped to make decisions than nongamers?

• The Dangers of Getting Contract IT Work Through Staffing Agencies

  Working for a staffing firm can be an effective way for unemployed IT professionals to connect with potential employers. But working for a staffing agency has serious downsides, too. IT workers should consider these six drawbacks before taking on a contract position through a staffing firm.

• The business CIO

  Now more than ever, experience outside IT counts.

• The 7 deadly sins of IT management

  Let the IT manager who is without sin cast the first stone.

• Moving to a start-up? Fasten your seatbelt

  Remember the late '90s, when tech managers left corporate IT in droves join Internet start-ups? Some people got rich, and others got burned, but everyone agreed -- working for a start-up is a unique experience.

• Global IT: Leadership from Afar

  Paul Martin, global CIO of Rexam, is returning to the US but keeping his job at the packaging giant.