Karen D. Schwartz

Like most ambitious businesses, Cars.com aims high. The Chicago-based company, already arguably the world’s leading online automobile marketplace, wants to solidify its standing as the number one automotive marketplace. To do that, Chief Technology Officer Manny Montejano knows the company must find a way to be more agile and efficient, improving the site in ways […]

Just because a CIO works at a midmarket company doesn’t mean he or she is less qualified or experienced than a CIO at a large enterprise-but it probably means that he or she doesn’t earn as much. In general, midmarket CIOs wear more hats than enterprise CIOs, requiring them to be nimble enough to multitask, […]

For a company to remain competitive, there’s nothing more important than knowing what your customers want, how efficient your processes are, where to focus your marketing dollars and which projects to spend R&D funds on. In most cases, that means implementing, running and maintaining a business intelligence system-a costly and complex endeavor that requires in-house […]

With talk of a looming recession everywhere you turn, it’s time to start thinking about how to keep customers coming back and create new demand in spite of the fact that times are tighter. For many companies, that means finding a way to get the message out in a meaningful way without spending more money-or […]

When Marvin Goldstein landed his current job as a program manager at the Library of Congress a few months ago, he couldn’t have been happier. It was exactly what he was looking for-a challenging environment where he could use his existing skills and learn new ones. But it took him seven months to find that […]

When it comes to technology, it’s back to basics for 2008-that means security, disaster recovery and consolidating infrastructure-with dropping interest in extra goodies such as increasing business efficiency or improving work force productivity, according to a new report. The Forrester Research report, “2008 SMB IT Budgets North America: It’s Back to Basics,” came out on […]

New storage technology may well be faster, more reliable for data protection, simpler to manage and more flexible, but companies on tight budgets aren’t moving their precious data off their old methods-at least for now. That’s the conclusion of a report from Enterprise Strategy Group, a Milford, Mass., consultancy. According to the January report, titled […]

There are plenty of reasons for penny-pinchers to love Skype, but with a history of security issues and an inability to lock them down, there are just as many reasons for IT managers to be wary of it. To combat those concerns and raise its profile even further in the small and midsize business market, […]

Open source has it all over traditional software when it comes to cost, flexibility and freedom from vendor lock-in. According to a new study from Northbridge Venture Partners on the future of open source, released on March 25 in conjunction with the Open Source Business Conference, those were the top three factors that make open […]

A customer service representative does his taxes between calls. A saleswoman plays an occasional game of Internet backgammon during the day. The office manager spends time surfing the Web, looking for just the right pair of shoes. Those scenarios may be disturbing enough to company executives-after all, it does cut down on productivity-but that should […]