It's been a busy and transformative year for enterprise software. We dug through our story archives, talked to industry experts and put on our thinking caps to come up with this list of key events and emerging trends from 2012, all of which are set to have a lasting impact on the industry.
With a 3D printer that costs less than $3,000, you can start your own mini manufacturing operation -- and use open source software to create surprisingly complex designs
Sure, plenty of enterprise software projects go just fine and end up giving customers all the things vendors promise: lower operating costs, streamlined operations and happier users.
If there's one thing there's an inexhaustible supply of it's negligence. The Big N appears everywhere and it's indefatigable. As soon as you let your guard down for a second, it jumps up, slaps you upside the head, and runs around causing chaos.
IPads are already making their way into businesses via bring-your-own-device efforts with Microsoft Surface RT tablets hoping to follow suit as employees lobby for their favorite devices. But which one makes more sense from an IT perspective?
Pradip Sitaram, CIO at Enterprise Business Partners, led a project to modernize the nonprofit housing developer's IT infrastructure, introducing agile development and cloud-based computing along the way.
Hiring contract tech workers is a quick, easy way to staff up a project or offload mundane tasks -- but managing them can be ticklish.
"The Human Face of Big Data" is an ambitious and attractive new large-format book that aims to give readers, through photography and short articles, a glimpse of how powerful new data processing capabilities are changing people's lives. Author Rick Smolan is a photographer who gained fame for his "Day in the Life" series, which included an edition focused on the Internet in 1996, "24 Hours in Cyberspace." He says that his latest work is based on the premise that "our planet is beginning to develop a nervous system."
This past Cyber Monday was the biggest online spending day in history. In the aftermath, two trends are clear: mobile shopping is a growing trend and retailers are doing a good job prepping for traffic spikes but third-party service providers are not.
Enterprise social networking helps employees collaborate in a comfortable way. To have a real impact, though, you'll need a robust platform - one that integrates with your corporate directory, takes governance seriously and meets three additional important criteria.
SAP and a financial analyst are at loggerheads over a recent report by the analyst, which said that a handful of customers had received substantial discounts on their software maintenance renewals.
You have no doubt watched the rise of Pinterest, the latest social media phenom. But have you switched to the new Pinterest Business Pages? Here's how to do it, plus details on its other exclusive features.
Customer relationship management experts and seasoned users discuss how to avoid the most common mistakes, so you can get the most out of your CRM software or service with the least amount of hassle.
Technology trends can come and go with little more than a (Google) Wave, but seven trends of 2012 are here to stay. Some came out of nowhere, while others emerged after years of development.
Who hasn't wanted to throw up their hands and just walk out of the office? Don't do it. Learn the proper etiquette for leaving your job and ensure that your career and reputation remain intact after you leave your current position.