The Cutter Blog | Debate Online

Call for Papers on Social Networking

Christine Generali — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:06:27 +0000

Enterprise use of social networks is in on the rise. But how do we know if it’s working? The October issue of Cutter IT Journal seeks to uncover the metrics organizations are using to measure the value of their social networking efforts. Article abstracts are due July 10. For more information, visit here.

Text, Tweet or Talk? How Do You Communicate?

Anne Mullaney — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:16:42 +0000

We were recently directed to Text, Tweet, or Talk: Communication for Today, a newly launched blog written by Michele Davis, an undergraduate student and friend of Cutter. Michele is exploring trends in interpersonal communication and what effects these trends have on society. She’s specifically looking at the impact of the movement away from face-to-face/voice communication [...]

It Won’t Be Déjà Vu

Anne Mullaney — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:41:57 +0000

Last December, we asked the Cutter Business Technology Council to provide some advice for surviving the recession. Since there are now some signs that things are beginning to turn around, we thought it would be interesting to see what the Council thinks will be different as we emerge from the recession. The consensus: Post-recovery ≠ [...]

No More Gorilla Dust: Autopsy of GM

Robert Charette — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:17:37 +0000

So long to the gorilla dust at GM. That’s what billionaire entrepreneur founder of EDS and ex-General Motors executive Ross Perot called the annual optimistic projections of GM executives during the 1980s, as it continued to lose market share. “When gorillas fight, they throw dust in the air to distract one another,” Perot said. Gorilla dust [...]

What productivity tools do IT pros use?

Kim Leonard — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:08:51 +0000

IT professionals tell us anecdotally that they use a variety of personal productivity solutions — from checklists on paper to involved (and expensive) project planning software. Please take our 3-minute survey and help us get a snapshot of the current and best practices in use by IT professionals worldwide. We’ll thank you with a copy of [...]

A Peek Behind The Curtain of Wolfram|Alpha

Mitchell Ummel — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:42:00 +0000

Wolfram|Alpha is described as having four key components: An ever-growing repository of underlying curated data piped in and stored on Wolfram Research systems, complementing the existing computable data stores already available through Mathematica. 5-6M lines of computational code repurposed from the Mathematica software kernel Rudimentary natural language processing (NLP) capability, which is optimized for this specific domain, and [...]

Taking Wolfram|Alpha for a Spin (Another Preview)

Mitchell Ummel — Wed, 13 May 2009 13:06:07 +0000

Earlier this month, via web conference, I had the privilege of participating in a live demo of the pre-release Wolfram|Alpha, presented in person by Mr. Wolfram, and had the opportunity to ask questions during the call. Subsequently, I received an invitation-only access to use the Wolfram|Alpha test application. The following is based on my notes [...]

The Computational Web Now Realized? Wolfram|Alpha Preview: The Vision

Mitchell Ummel — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:36:35 +0000

Based on his previous groundbreaking successes in the fields of computational science and mathematics, my expectations are high for Wolfram|Alpha, a new venture by Stephen “Mathematica” Wolfram, also author of 2002’s soaring 1280-page book entitled A New Kind of Science. Mr. Wolfram’s blog entry states: It’s going to be a website: WolframAlpha.com. With one simple input [...]

Oracle Buys Sun. So What Happens with MySQL?

Curt Hall — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:38:48 +0000

In a strange twist of fate, the annual MySQL Conference was just getting underway in Santa Clara, California, USA, when news hit that Oracle Corporation was acquiring Sun and, along with it, MySQL. That the most aggressive enterprise software company was buying the world’s leading open source database struck like lightning. After all, it had [...]

As the Net Kills Newspapers, Who Pays for Free?

Ken Orr — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:13:22 +0000

I am, by all accounts, a news junkie. I take two papers every day and three on Sundays. I subscribe to a number of magazines and any number of news feeds. My startup page on the Internet is “Google News.” I have the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, the Wall [...]