eWEEK Editorial Board

When IAC bought Ask Jeeves for $1.85 billion last month, experts were not saying that IAC overpaid—quite the contrary. That gives you some idea of the way industry watchers view the potential and importance of search technology. The momentum for search has been building for some time. Google, having reached $1 billion in annual sales, […]

The first reports of the potential benefits of WiMax technology appeared almost a year ago, when the IEEE ratified the 802.16-2004, or 802.16d, standard. Skeptics, however, were weary after finally sorting out the various Wi-Fi standards and cautioned that the WiMax hype was ahead of the technology. Given the fickle nature of standards, and standards-setting […]

At Microsofts recent convergence customer conference, company officials fleshed out plans for “Project Green,” the software vendors initiative for unifying its business applications around a single code base and service-oriented architecture. According to Microsoft executives, Project Green is set to begin bearing fruit sometime between now and 2007 with user interface integration of the companys […]

The IT industry has spawned more than its share of celebrity executives. Now IT has borrowed a celebrity from the world of entertainment, heiress and socialite Paris Hilton, for marquee value in the battle to secure online systems. Most of the world knows that Hiltons smart-phone address book contents were posted on the Internet. As […]

Much has been written about the next-generation cell processor, a collaborative effort among IBM, Toshiba and Sony. It is an intriguing technology, already being dubbed as a “supercomputer on a chip,” but IT executives should not be making plans for using it in their enterprises any time soon. The chip landscape has been littered with […]

During his keynote address at the RSA security conference, Bill Gates announced that Microsoft will release a beta version of Internet Explorer 7.0 for Windows XP Service Pack 2 customers sometime this summer. Company officials said the browser will gain new anti-phishing, anti-spyware and anti-virus safeguards. There has been much speculation about Microsofts reasoning behind […]

Having more than once expressed in this space our skepticism regarding the merger of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq, we could now look back and say, “We told you so.” But now that Carly Fiorina has paid the price for her high-stakes gamble and is no longer leading the company, its important to look not at the […]

SBCs bid to buy AT&T provides the kind of irony and symmetry that indicate the end of an era: Once a mighty monopoly, a provider of best-in-the-world phone service and the safest possible investment, AT&T is broken into pieces and swallowed by its offspring. Since the breakup of AT&T in 1984, the judicial, legislative and […]

It makes good political theater for congress and executive branch agencies to step in to question a major IT deal in the name of national security, but in the case of the IBM-Lenovo deal, there are two serious questions that deserve a response. Do PCs represent a strategic technology? And are U.S. national security interests […]

In August 1991, a 21-year-old student posted a newsgroup message introducing a “free operating system” that he described as “just a hobby, wont be big and professional like gnu.” Barely into its adolescence, Linux has changed the software industry—to the point that we must ask how much longer traditional software vendors can compete against “free” […]

IBM, again playing its role as the “friendly giant”of the open-source community, recently granted access to 500 software patents to any project that releases its code under an Open Source Initiative-approved license. While IBMs unshackled intellectual property isnt likely, on its own, to spur much new open-source development, it will help put significant open-source projects […]

Microsoft officials are putting up a brave front with regard to the future of the companys Passport authentication service, but the recent defections by key partners Monster and eBay were telling blows from which the service may never fully recover. Microsofts rivals should be careful not to celebrate prematurely. It remains to be seen whether […]