Jenny Thomas
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Station Casinos Makes a Safe Bet with Informatica
March 15, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreA safe bet is the holy grail for most Las Vegas gamers. But when Station Casinos began looking for solutions to link data from all 18 of its casinos and hotels in and around the Las Vegas area, they weren’t about to take any gambles with their critical information. Informatica, as it turned out, dealt a winning hand.
Station Casinos, is a long-time IBM i user, first adopting the then-called AS/400 platform in the early 1990s. The company uses a mix of IBM i applications that are commonly found in casinos around the world, including Agilysys for hotel operations
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Encouraging News on IT Jobs in Q2
March 14, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreIf you’re one of the many people who has lost a job and has been struggling to find work as our the United States struggles to get out of its current economic mess, you’ll be encouraged to learn that CIOs here are feeling optimistic about hiring in the second quarter of 2011.
Robert Half Technology, which finds jobs for IT professionals on a project and full-time basis, recently conducted telephone interviews with more than 1,400 CIOs from companies across the United States with 100 or more employees. The results of those interviews were released last week in their IT
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E-Mail Storage Solution for Outlook Users from ACOM
March 1, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreWe all have too many e-mails, but a new solution from ACOM Solutions can help you get a handle on your inbox. ACOM last week launched EZCM Plug-In, delivering one-click e-mail management for Microsoft Outlook users.
EZContent Manager (EZCM) is a Windows-based content management and workflow system that’s designed to meet the needs of small and mid-size IBM i customers. In addition to serving as a searchable repository for business documents, the software includes a workflow system designed to enable better collaboration among employees, and hopefully reduce the organization’s dependence on paper documents.
With EZCM Plug-In, ACOM has delivered an
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No Excuse for Tardiness in Poor Economy
February 28, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreMy alarm didn’t go off. I couldn’t find my car keys. My kid wouldn’t get up this morning. We’ve all had those days when we just couldn’t get it together to be on time. But a recent survey by CareerBuilder reveals that the recession appears to have improved punctuality in the workplace.
The national survey, conducted among 2,482 U.S. employers and 3,910 U.S. employees between November 15 and December 2, 2010, revealed that 15 percent of workers said they arrive late to work at least once a week, which is actually a slight improvement from 16 percent in 2009 and
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Big Blue Predicts Cloudy IT Skies by 2015
February 21, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreYou don’t need radar to see the clouds are coming. We’re only two months into the new year and already 2011 can be summed up in a few buzzwords that seem to be on everyone’s lips: social media, Beiber fever, and, of course, cloud computing.
You can’t turn on a TV or surf the Web without a barrage of advertising and speculation on the cloud phenomena. As further proof, IBM recently conducted a developerWorks survey of more than 2,000 IT professionals worldwide, and 91 percent of those surveyed believe cloud computing will overtake on-premise computing as the primary way organizations
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2011 IT Spending is on the Mend, Says ESG
February 14, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreThe 2011 IT Spending Intentions Survey was just released by Enterprise Strategy Group, and its findings indicate the economy is turning around in many areas of IT, with 51 percent of respondents reporting their 2011 IT budgets will increase when compared to 2010 levels.
The survey conducted by ESG, an IT analyst and business strategy firm located Milford, Massachusetts, was based on data gathered from 611 North American and Western European senior IT professionals from midmarket (100 to 999 employees) and enterprise-class (1,000 employees or more) organizations.
In addition to a majority of respondents stating they plan to increase
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IBM Loads Up the Startup Bandwagon with $150 Million
February 7, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreLast week, the White House launched “Startup America,” a national campaign to help America promote high-growth entrepreneurship by encouraging the private sector to invest in nurturing small businesses to create the jobs and industries of the future.
IBM heard the call and immediately announced plans to invest $150 million in 2011 to fund its Global Entrepreneur program, which it created last year to promote entrepreneurs and new business opportunities in the United States.
“The investment will help us greatly expand the work we’re doing to build business skills and provide market opportunities for the most innovative new companies in the
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Manta Introduces Blended Learning to the Training Mix
January 31, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreClassroom instruction. Web-based training. Teleconferences. Mix it all together and what do you have? Blended learning, a structured combination of classroom and self-study instruction with a strong component of social networking thrown in. And it’s the hottest trend in education. At least, that’s what Bill Hansen of Manta Technologies is betting on.
In today’s world, online universities and for-profit schools are churning out graduates who no longer have the time or luxury of getting an education in a traditional college setting. These students are already in the workforce, going after valuable education at night and on the weekends to boost
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Social Butterfl-i? Enterprise Social Software Spending to Grow in 2011
January 24, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreEven if you’re one of the few holdouts who has not succumbed to joining a social network at home, a social network is likely headed into your workplace that will thrust you into the global community whether you’re ready or not. In every marketplace around the globe, companies are scrambling to figure out how to make social software work for their enterprise to connect employees, partners, and customers in a bid to cut costs, improve worker productivity, grow business, and, of course, make money.
According to the Gartner report, Market Trends: Convergence Restructuring the Enterprise Social Software Market, Worldwide, 2010
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U.S. Regains Top Global Patent Holder Title, IBM Leads the Pack
January 17, 2011 Jenny Thomas
… Read moreThe counts on the number of patents granted in 2010 have been released, and a sluggish U.S. economy appears to have had no effect on innovation. According to the annual Patent Intelligence & Technology Report released by IFI Claims Patent Services, patent grants in 2010 reached an all-time high of 219,614 utility patents in 2010, up 31 percent from 2009 and the most significant annual increase on record. The old record was set in 2006 when the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a total of 173,772 patents.
It has been two years since American-headquartered companies have led the