Here are examples of three IT managers who have taken creative approaches to dealing with issues such as recovering from laptop crashes and monitoring all of those security sensors. Organization: Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice PLLC, Winston-Salem, N.C. Mission: With approximately 450 lawyers, Womble Carlyle is one of the largest law firms in the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast, as well as one of the most technologically advanced. Founded in 1876, the firm celebrated its 125th anniversary last...

The U.S. Air Force recently issued a request for proposals to purchase 2,200 Sony PlayStation 3 video game consoles. Does the Air Force plan to play lots of Grand Theft Auto? No -- rather, the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, N.Y., is interested in the chip technology inside the PS3, specifically the Cell Broadband Engine Architecture, according a blog post by Gartner Inc. analyst Andrea DiMaio. The Air Force is studying whether the PS3 chips could be a cost-effective technology for...

The U.S. Air Force recently issued a request for proposals to purchase 2,200 Sony PlayStation 3 video game consoles. Does the Air Force plan to play lots of Grand Theft Auto? No -- rather, the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, N.Y., is interested in the chip technology inside the PS3, specifically the Cell Broadband Engine Architecture, according a blog post by Gartner Inc. analyst Andrea DiMaio . The Air Force is studying whether the PS3 chips could be a cost-effective technology for...

There isn’t any flashy writing or trendy technology here. No mention of clouds, Facebook or Twitter. But the new book World Class IT (Jossey-Bass, 2009), by consultant Peter A. High , provides solid — dare I say timeless — advice for CIOs trying to manage IT for business success. The book takes the CIO’s complex world and boils it down to the following core principles (stated here verbatim): 1. Recruit, train and retain world-class IT people. 2. Build and maintain a robust IT...

Stratus Technologies Inc. -- the fault-tolerant server maker formerly known as Stratus Computer -- celebrated its 30th anniversary this month. To mark the milestone, the company held a contest to identify the Stratus servers that have been humming away the longest, and those with the least unplanned downtime. Slideshow: The Hardware Hall of Fame The winner for longevity was a Stratus server at Double Eagle Steel Coating Co. that has been running ERP applications for 17 years. It was installed...