Thomas Hoffman

Insurers increasingly are relying on technologies such as laptop PCs and wireless networks to speed claims processing for their policyholders, including homeowners and businesses in hurricane-ravaged areas of Florida.

Not surprisingly, Miami-Dade County's IT managers have had to come up with innovative ways to balance the its IT requirements with the needs of the centre's workers -- especially when natural disasters such as hurricanes occur.

Prior to 2001, Documentum Inc. had used a smattering of Web conferencing platforms to support internal training, corporate communications and outbound marketing activities. Problem was, the Web conferencing systems were becoming increasingly expensive to run and placed severe restrictions on the number of people who could access them.

As the IT budget season heats up, CIOs interviewed recently said they're guardedly optimistic about their 2005 spending plans. But many IT managers are expected to increase spending on hardware and outsourcing primarily in response to pressure from corporate executives to cut IT infrastructure and labour costs.

For many of the attendees at a recent Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance conference, getting technology managers and staffers involved in the process of documenting internal...

Six enterprise software vendors that announced weaker-than-expected revenue forecasts for the second quarter this month can blame their shortcomings on several factors, including a saturated market for large customers, analysts said.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are developing a computer-based administrative assistant that draws upon artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to perform routine tasks such as scheduling meetings for busy managers and filtering and prioritizing their e-mail. One caveat: It won

Despite a steady rise in the number of IT jobs being outsourced, demand for workers with Internet-related skills such as Java and networking is helping to drive IT compensation higher, according to a report released Tuesday by Meta Group Inc.