Darryl K. Taft

Opscode, creator of the Chef open-source configuration management tool, announced a name change for its core products as well as new functionality to help extend its technology further into the enterprise, as enterprise adoption is on the rise. Opscode announced that Private Chef and Hosted Chef are now renamed to Enterprise Chef and offered both […]

With the acquisition of security specialist Trusteer, IBM aims to advance its investment in cloud-delivered software and services and expand its security portfolio. IBM, which announced Aug. 15 that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire Israel-based Trusteer, did not disclose financial terms of the deal. IBM is forming a cyber-security software lab in […]

Tag Management Systems: How to Make Smart Purchasing Decisions by Darryl K. Taft Check for the Basics Confirm that your TMS handles all the basics by making it easy to add, delete or modify a tag without needing IT help. Look for support from your TMS for setting the rules that you need and for […]

IBM has added nine new academic collaborations—focusing on big data and analytics—to its more than 1,000 partnerships with universities worldwide. IBM is doing its part to narrow the big data skills gap by helping to prepare students for the 4.4 million jobs that will be created worldwide to support big data by 2015. The company […]

Microsoft has announced a new phase of its channel strategy for its Surface tablet computer systems. On Aug. 15, Microsoft announced the next phase of the plan to make Surface available to commercial customers through newly added distributors and authorized resellers in Canada and select markets in Western Europe including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, […]

IBM announced that its security software and services offerings will be part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program. The CDM Program will provide specialized IT tools and Continuous Monitoring as a Service (CMaaS) offerings to combat cyber-threats in the civilian and “.gov” networks including various network endpoints […]

Hortonworks, a provider of enterprise Apache Hadoop solutions, announced the general availability of Hortonworks Data Platform 1.3 (HDP) for Windows. Hortonworks officials said the open-source HDP 1.3 for Windows is the only Apache Hadoop-based distribution certified to run on Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012. It enables Microsoft customers to build and deploy […]

IBM Big Data Tools Preserve European Heritage by Darryl K. Taft IBM Helps Preserve and Share Rare Medieval Texts A big data management solution consisting of IBM System x servers and IBM storage is being used to preserve and digitize nearly 800,000 pages of European historical documents, including medieval manuscripts, at the Wroclaw University Library […]

Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced Amazon Simple Notification Service (Amazon SNS) with Mobile Push, a fast, cross-platform push notification service in the cloud to facilitate application development. AWS officials said with one simple API, application developers can send notifications to Apple iOS, Google Android and Kindle Fire devices. All AWS customers can begin using Mobile […]

Looker Data Sciences, a business intelligence (BI) software provider, announced a $16 million Series A round of investment capital to advance the company’s BI strategy. Looker raised the $16 million in venture funding in a round led by Redpoint Ventures, with contributions from First Round Capital and previous seed-round investors. The company, which launched its […]