Poll sponsored by DocuBox : Nasce oggi DocuBox, una soluzione per il backup 2.0 dei dati aziendali sviluppata dall’omonima start-up italiana sulla base di una innovativa tecnologia brevettata, aperta verso il futuro delle infrastrutture IT e delle modalità di accesso degli utenti, soprattutto mobili.

When you talk to IT pros and business managers about tablet computers, the first question they tend to ask is, “Looks cool, but what I do with it?” This conversation has been happening for a decade since Microsoft’s pen-based Tablet PC was introduced at Comdex 2001. There, Bill Gates declared, “Within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America.”

That turned out to be a false prophesy. Microsoft’s tablet never attracted a mass audience, although it has gained some niche adoption in industries such as health care, field service, and hospitality.

However, the Apple iPad and the new breed of slate computers that are hitting the market in 2010 are looking to revive the tablet concept. They are doing it with a lighter, thinner form factor that uses a touch-based interface rather than pen computing.

It’s way too early to predict whether the new tablets will be successful, but it’s easy to imagine some of the usage scenarios for them in the business world. Here are five to consider: (…)

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(From Tech Republic) – I love following smartphones. From the incredible hardware to the innovative operating systems and the strange and tumultuous companies that create and market them, it is an industry that always seems to be in flux. Where desktop hardware and software have more or less reached a peaceful détente between the major players, the smartphone industry looks like a map of post-WWII Europe, with borders, influences, and alliances changing almost weekly. Many in the corporate space have a love/hate relationship with these devices. With a rapidly shifting industry with no totally dominant player to new employee expectations about what they should be able to do with “their” phone, smartphones are just as much a source of potential headaches as they are productivity tools.

With that in mind, here are four wild predictions about what could happen in the smartphone industry in the next eighteen months. These are purely hypothetical but plausible scenarios based on my observations, rather than any insider information or sources within these companies. Disclaimer out of the way, here we go: (…)

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(From TechRepublic) January 27, 2010 will go down in history as the day that the strategic landscape of IT changed dramatically and, despite the hype, it wasn’t due to an announcement by Steve Jobs. Oracle announced and detailed its strategy following the approval of Oracle’s purchase of Sun Microsystems by various regulatory agencies. Although Oracle is already one of the 800 pound gorillas in the technology world, it’s got some new ammunition and looks to be ready to fire off its newly acquired munitions.

Right up-front for all the users of Sun hardware (despite the doom and gloom predictions of a SPARC-less world), Oracle put forth a commitment to not only support Sun hardware, but to continue to revamp and improve the newly acquired hardware line. In fact, Oracle’s new goal is to recreate the “gold standard” of IBM in the 1960s, when Big Blue took care of everything from the data center to the desktop, with a strong focus on open systems. (…)

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