Stories by Ross O. Storey

With Apple's launch of the second version of its iPad, research house Ovum predicts that it will take until 2015 for devices running Google's Android platform to catch up.

Research house Ovum believes last week's announced partnership between Nokia and Microsoft is "a bold move, but absolutely the right one".

Combining electricity supply with modern computer and communications technology to create an 'intelligent grid' will be a key focus of the utility industry in 2011.

Information technology salaries are on the rise across the Asia Pacific, with the upward trend expected to continue through 2011, according to the latest Technology salary survey by recruitment specialists Robert Half International.

Contract negotiation skills are one of the top three required abilities for information security professionals dealing with cloud computing, according to new research.
This is one finding highlighted in early survey results from the 2011 (ISC)2 Global Information Security Workforce Study (GISWS) conducted by industry analysts Frost & Sullivan and covering more than 100 countries.

Internet security specialist BitDefender has warned about the dangers of a new spying Trojan it describes as "a serious enemy" that can be used as a corporate spying tool.
In a statement, BitDefender says that Trojan.Spy.YEK sniffs for critical data and archives that may hold private information and sends them back to the attacker.

In the past 12 months, Asia has seen a massive increase in Apple iPhone users, the strongest take-up of Apple devices in the world.
This is according to the April 2010 Metrics Report by mobile advertising network AdMob.

Top Glove, based at Selangor in Malaysa, produces nearly a quarter (23 percent) of the world’s demand for rubber gloves, including latex gloves used for medical examinations and surgery.
It is a healthy business given that the world uses 150 billion gloves per annum primarily in the healthcare and food services industries. It has 19 factories spread over Malaysia, Thailand and China and a total of 355 production lines producing 31.5 billion gloves per year. Top Glove products are exported to more than 180 countries and some 850 regular customers.

The rapidly evolving information technology threat landscape means enterprises are now demanding tailored security solutions across physical, cloud computing and virtualised environments, according to IT risk and compliance specialists Trend Micro.

There is growing evidence of previously suspended IT projects and commercial activities being reactivated, plus an increased demand for information technologies professionals across the Asia Pacific.
These are among the key findings of the Asia Job Index Q4 2009 released in Singapore by major international recruitment consultancy Robert Walters.

Ross O. Storey, managing editor, MIS Asia, speaks to technology researcher Andrew McAfee about his new book ‘Enterprise 2.0 – New Collaborative Tools for Your Organisation’s Toughest Challenges’, which examines the business value of emerging technologies such as social networking.
What is Enterprise 2.0, how important is it to major businesses today and why should they be using it?

The new Microsoft Windows 7 operating system (OS) due for launch in October, will likely change the personal computer industry forever, according to research house Frost & Sullivan.
Frost & Sullivan APAC VP IT Practice, Martin Gilliland, said that Windows 7 represents a "user-driven upgrade that breaks the link between PC OS and PC Hardware upgrade cycles for the first time in the history of the PC".

Planned 2010 spending on software by Asia Pacific enterprises is expected to increase by 4.4 per cent -- the highest of all global regions, according to new research by Gartner.
Hardware spending remains dominant, but the increased software spending will take place in an environment where overall IT budgets are expected to decline by 3.1 per cent, on average.

While the application and threat landscape has been evolving, firewalls have changed very little over the last 15 years, according to enterprise network firm Palo Alto Networks.

Customer service has never been a more important differentiator for enterprises than it is now in the economic downturn, according to software giant Microsoft.