Category: Tech Insight

Tech Time Warp: Making nothing of mobile malware
An early case of mobile malware provoked an interesting reaction from pundits: swift dismissal as much ado about nothing. In June 2000, users of mobile phones made by the Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica began receiving strange text messages. The messages...

A look into IT service provider spending habits
A survey of nearly 400 IT service providers, MSPs, and other professional service companies finds well over half (58 percent) have increased their suppliers over the past three years, with 26 percent keeping the number of vendors they work with...

Tech Time Warp: Burning questions about Flame’s origins
The Flame virus first flickered publicly in May 2012 when the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union requested the hacking of Iranian computers be investigated. Although not widespread — only a few hundred targeted computers were thought to have been infected...

Tech Time Warp: Kodak plays for KEEPS
Eastman Kodak’s major product announcements on May 29, 1985, remind us yet again of how far we’ve come in less than 40 years. The New York Times, The Washington Post and Associated Press all covered Kodak’s news about KEEPS (short...

Honoring the MSP community on Global MSP Day 2023
June 1st is quickly approaching, and the excitement is building! We’re looking forward to a collaborative Global MSP Day. As we get closer to the big day, SmarterMSP surveyed MSPs to learn what it means to be an MSP, as...

Pioneers in Tech: Kao Chung-chin and Lois Lew, who brought IBM’s typewriter to China
In today’s globalized, always-connected society, another innovation we take for granted is the universality of computers despite language differences. And some of us in English-speaking countries will even go a step further and assume computers all over the world have...

MSPs can create value amid growing cloud costs
A survey of 100 vice presidents from organizations with more than 1,000 employees suggests a need for increased visibility into cloud spending. This has become a major opportunity for managed service providers (MSPs) that have cloud expertise. Conducted by Vega...

Tech Time Warp: Could I have email, texts, and spam, without the spam?
This week’s Tech Time Warp is all about “spam.” Spam can now be used as a noun or verb and even has an adjectival form: “spammy.” And to think, not long ago it was solely canned meat! So how did...

Reining in costs moves to the top of the IT agenda
In the wake of the economic downturn, the issues that are stressing out senior information technology (IT) leaders have changed. A survey of 200 IT professionals conducted by Torii, a provider of a platform for managing software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications, finds...

Tech Time Warp: The ANIMAL instinct to do good
If you have ever dabbled in Dungeons & Dragons, you are familiar with the “alignment system,” which is a way to chart characters’ tendency toward good vs. evil as well as their inclination to follow rules (“lawful” vs. “chaotic”). With...