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Series of useful articles such as: getting strategic & financial planning in same bailiwick; vendor negotiation strategies; deriving value from vendor references; etc.

When people talk about the technology business, they almost always refer to its key aspects as hardware, software, and networking. Too bad that's wrong. The emerging reality is devices, access, and services.

Article examines impact universities are having in terms of technology transfer related to the Bayh-Dole act; includes two Top-50 lists, one based on patents and one based on liscensing revenue

Article discusses a new generation of browsing tools lets you kill ads, change fonts, adjust backgrounds, and generally teach a web page who's boss.

Upside presents an overview of the various forms of broadband connections: VoIP, DSL, Cable Modems, Fixed Wireless and Fiber Optics.

Editor's Note: the original Upside site is out of business so I am linking to the archive.org archive of the article - it can be quite slow at times...

Picking the right new technology -- and then developing and marketing it correctly -- can catapult a company ahead of its competition, expand its customer base and boost profits. For decades, top minds in research and development have relied on the S-curve theory to help them make those decisions. But research by Ashish Sood, an assistant professor of marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School, and a colleague indicate that the theory is flawed and a new approach is much needed.

The latest tech craze needs one hit company to make it valid. The Silicon Valley elite is betting on InfraSearch.

Note: Business 2.0 is now part of CNNmoney and some older articles are no longer available

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The spoken word is the hot commodity this fall, for Internet companies ranging from retailers that envision voice-activated sales to advertisers envisioning a captive audience. In this special report, Business 2.com examines how companies will profit from voice technologies on the Web, what obstacles remain, who the leading players are, and what the future will bring.

Wireless got you worried? Here are a few issues to consider before committing to a wireless networking solution.

The ASP model is the latest in a long line of silver bullets that are supposed to simplify the delivery of technology's benefits to the business world. This article provides some simple guidelines for determining if you should consider the ASP model along with thoughts on selecting an ASP.

Note: Darwin Magazine is now dead. Some articles are moving to CIO. I will try to update the links when I have time...

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Will e-scheduling turn humdrum service websites into "appointment Internet"?

Linking thousands of PCs was a neat way to hunt for space aliens. Now it's a serious business tool.

This article takes a look at the underlying technology (in layman's terms) driving the semiconductor industry. Very enlightening. Also discusses Moore's Law.

This article examines a new artificial intelligence based virtual customer service solution known as a chatterbot.

In the world of high performance computing, everyone wants to know how well a system performs before deciding to buy it. Benchmarks provide a relatively objective way of determining how well a system will perform under given conditions. What customers need to know is: which benchmarks are relevant to their particular needs, and which ones don't matter? This article answers those questions and offers two useful tables - one listing the most common benchmark tests and another showing the correlation between those tests and various tasks/applications. Also discussed is the misapplication of benchmarks.

Help desks deal with all types of users, and one tech has finally created a classification system that Darwin himself would be proud of. Here's a lighthearted look at the users you love to serve but who often drive you mad.

Gartner Group article compares DSL and cable modem based services, specifically with an eye to quality of service (QoS).

Article provides a plain-english look at a new wireless technology that has the potential to shake up several markets.

Although digital cash was a compelling concept, companies went out of business left and right trying to make it work -- until PayPal came along. PayPal's simplified idea of e-cash didn't create a separate currency (instead sticking with the good old dollar), and signing up didn't require any paperwork or credit checks. The service expanded exponentially when eBay users began to adopt it as a payment method of choice. However, the same facts that make PayPal easy to use and sign up for have a flip side.

Companies hope that by linking Web sites and call centers, they'll improve customer loyalty, attract new business, and cut costs. Those are all compelling reasons. But another driver behind the Web call center is more persuasive: Customers want it.
A Web call center can improve customer service and retention by providing a variety of self-care applications online, then backing up that convenience with the ability to communicate with a person in the call center. Furthermore, handling contact with less-strategic customers via the Web and the Internet can free agents to provide costly hands-on care to a company's most profitable customers.

"Despite big spending on information systems, many organizations are finding there's still a shortage of truly useful information, due to the fragmentation of data. How can organizations resolve this 'Information Paradox'?

Business intelligence (BI) solutions can put the information pieces back together to provide businesses with a more meaningful, complete picture. In this article, I'll describe the conceptual architecture commonly used for BI."

Ever since the Internet entered the popular culture, futurists and technophiles have been telling the world that the new medium would transform homes into information-rich hubs of activity.

Get a high-level overview of content-delivery services and their role in alleviating uneven E-Commerce traffic. Also see related story, "Content-Delivery Network Services Vary Greatly" at: http://www.informationweek.com/815/cdnvendors.htm

Faster browsers and better software all help to provide immediate and improved service

Caching products provide an effective way to make Web users happier by cutting the time it takes for them to load frequently accessed Web pages. They also help relieve network congestion and make it possible to postpone expensive hardware purchases.

XML will change the appearance and substance of corporate systems. A big part of the language's appeal is in being able to meld business processes with application.

A simple computer that marries the mind-boggling computing power of quantum mechanics with the ease of manipulating light has been built by researchers at the University of Rochester. The device proves that a specific quirk of atoms, which lets scientists conduct huge computations almost instantly, can be perfectly mimicked by light, which is much more practical to control than individual atoms. The result could be a computer that performs some tasks a billion times faster than today's supercomputers, using relatively simple technology that's already well understood.

This article describes the author's experience with the development of the first Yugoslav Internet payment processing system. The system's architecture is very similar to the Three Domain (3D) model that started to emerge later. This success story is worthwhile sharing with a wider audience.

Quick but useful look at the development of a standardized method of displaying the world's languages on computer screens.