Big Ideas and the Beauty of the Box

In this post-Enron, back-to-basics world, the thought of a CFO brimming with new ideas seems in itself a very bad idea. This is certainly not the time to get creative with tax shelters, off-balance-sheet financing, or revenue recognition. But if that’s true then what does the CFO bring to the tab...

By Scott Leibs • March 17, 2003

Who/What/Wi-Fi

The exhortations of Carrot Top notwithstanding, pay phones would seem to be inching closer to extinction one cell phone at a time. But a company called inCode Telecom sees a new role for them, as Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) “hot spots.” In a pilot program with Bell Canada, inCode is transforming pa...

By CFO Editorial Staff • March 17, 2003

Explore the Trendline➔

The CFO Strategy for Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence’s impact on the office of the CFO continues to evolve, and finance chiefs must be aware of the opportunities it will create for growth. 

By CFO.com staff

Centers of Attention

Last month, Sun Microsystems Inc. announced a raft of new technologies intended not only to give the company a boost in sales but also to refocus attention on an area of IT that hasn’t been buzz-worthy in years and possibly decades: the corporate data center.Wasn’t it supposed to have gone “light...

By Doug Bartholomew • March 17, 2003

The Truth Is In There

In the film Catch Me If You Can, an inventive con man lived large on forged checks, thanks to ingenuity and an eye for detail. Today he’d need a degree in molecular physics. Bar codes and radio-frequency ID (RFID) tags allow a company to mark its goods inexpensively, but a new breed of molecular ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • March 17, 2003

Get Smart

“Months late.” “Way over budget.” “Totally irrelevant.”If those phrases strike you as synonymous with “IT projects,” join the club.The good news is that the companies are finally getting some religion around this major, and majorly frustrating, capital expense. They be 20 years late and untold bi...

By Peter Krass • March 17, 2003

Desk Be Not Proud

It’s telling that corporate employees, lauded as “stakeholders,” “clients,” “team members,” or what have you in certain contexts, are simply — one might say disparagingly — labeled “users” by IT folks. But, to paraphrase George Bailey, these rabble that pester the help desks do most of the workin...

By Scott Leibs • March 17, 2003

A Shore Thing?

Not long ago, after FBI agents raided a Massachusetts software company they suspected of having ties to terrorists, calls began pouring into Tata Consultancy Services, an offshore outsourcing firm. Clients, most of them large American companies and financial institutions, felt newly vulnerable: g...

By Laton McCartney • March 17, 2003

Fine Time on the Desktop

Quan Ha was driving through Los Angeles when he heard a disturbing announcement on the radio. The Business Software Alliance, an industry group that combats software piracy and similar abuses, was urging companies to audit the software they use internally to ensure they had adequate licensing in ...

By Bob Violino • March 17, 2003

A Sense of Insecurity

Even before the so-called SQL Slammer worm choked Internet traffic in mid-January, two organizations that gather reports of vulnerabilities (exploitable cracks in IT infrastructures) and intrusions (viruses, worms, hacker attacks) had released new figures that gave cause for concern. The CERT Coo...

By Scott Leibs • March 1, 2003

Surf’s Up, Taxes Down

Spectacular beaches and topnotch surfing opportunities weren’t the reasons Landmark Networks Inc., a Silicon Valley, Calif.-based wireless start-up with no profits or customers, decided to move to Hawaii late last year.Instead it was the favorable investing climate, including a 100 percent state ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • March 1, 2003

Will Outsourcing Still Fly?

Last fall, the outsourcing industry seemed poised for a tailspin. Drained by soured bets on its own stock, a drop-off in new business, and a crop of troubled existing customers (including the bankrupt US Airways and WorldCom), Plano, Texas-based outsourcing giant EDS Corp. shocked Wall Street wit...

By Alix Stuart • Feb. 1, 2003

Eager to Serve, They Wait

The multimillion-dollar price tag of a new or substantially upgraded ERP system can understandably give CFOs pause. For several years, the idea of “software as a service” has loomed as an alternative, touted by third-party application service providers (ASPs) as well as software vendors themselve...

By Scott Leibs • Feb. 1, 2003

Phone Bill Outsourcing: Call Forwarding

Competition within every sector of the telecom industry may have driven per-minute prices down substantially, but that doesn’t mean you can ignore the phone bill. Companies spend anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 per year per employee on local, long-distance, cellular, and data communications, and ...

By Scott Leibs • Feb. 1, 2003

Damn the Torpedoes

Brilliant as a descriptor of national unity, e pluribus unum isn’t a bad rallying cry for IT strategy either. From the many databases and complex software systems that run large companies, every CFO would love to extract one complete, reliable, and timely view of operations extending from the fac...

By Scott Leibs • Feb. 1, 2003

Hardware Down, Humans Up

Thanks to better, faster, and cheaper technology, some of the key drivers of IT outsourcing costs have dropped dramatically. The average company is paying 80 percent less for mainframe usage than it was five years ago and 72 percent less for servers, according to data drawn from customers of Comp...

By Alix Stuart • Feb. 1, 2003

The Light Stuff

Can the considerable marketing muscle of Microsoft Corp. make of the old something new? “Tablet” PCs have been around for years, as anyone who has ever signed for a UPS package knows. But Microsoft believes that its new operating system — and a strong commitment to the devices from a sizable rang...

By Scott Leibs • Jan. 1, 2003

3G Turf War

Sunday Communications is in a crunch. But Bruce Hicks, group managing director of the mid-tier mobile service provider in Hong Kong’s ultra-competitive market, won’t admit it. He serenely spells out his plans to take Sunday to 3G. He is rational. He makes sense. But he is troubled. Or he should b...

By Jasper Moiseiwitsch • Jan. 1, 2003

E-Procurement: Myth Is as Good as a Mile

After years of hype and high investment, reality has set in among corporate E-procurers. In the heady dot-com-crazed days of the late 1990s, company after company thought wonderful things would happen to their bottom lines if they began sourcing and purchasing goods and services on the internet. ...

By CFO Editorial Staff • Jan. 1, 2003

Tech, and the Future of Finance

While Gandalf and Dumbledore give moviegoers a spectacular dose of year-end wizardry and soothsaying, the editors of CFO.com thought finance executives might want their own glimpse of the future. To that end, CFO.com Senior Editor Marie Leone spoke with futurist and social scientist James Canton ...

By Marie Leone • Dec. 23, 2002

Screen Dreams

Last year companies spent nearly $150 billion on business travel, and while that figure represents a 20 percent decline from the year before (due mostly to a slumping economy, although security fears also played a role), the expense is still considerable and once again climbing.Web conferencing, ...

By Scott Leibs • Dec. 1, 2002

Midmarket CRM: Microsoft Weighs In

Faced with the prospect of Microsoft invading their territory, midmarket customer relationship management (CRM) vendors, including SalesLogix Inc., FrontRange Solutions Inc., and UpShot Corp., are racing to offer customers more for less.Ironically, one of the new features some companies are touti...

By Alix Stuart • Dec. 1, 2002

Cross Off 2003, Say CFOs

For those hoping the economy will turn around in 2003, here’s some bad news. CFOs think next year will be just about as bad as the current model.Indeed, more than two-thirds of middle-market chief financial officers believe that in 2003, the economy either will stay flat, act erratically, or decl...

By Stephen Taub • Nov. 22, 2002

The Mouse That Might Roar

It is a devastating prospect. Terrorists electronically break into the computers that control the water supply of a large American city, open and close valves to contaminate the water with untreated sewage or toxic chemicals, and then release it in a devastating flood. As the emergency services s...

By Tom Standage • Nov. 1, 2002

Web Video: High Yield for Low-Rez?

Last year, BMW garnered plenty of attention for a series of Web-based films designed to entertain buyers and win sales. The effort cost a reported $15 million, much of it paid to big-name talent in front of and behind the camera. Yet even as the auto division readies a sequel, the company’s motor...

By Scott Leibs • Nov. 1, 2002

High Yield for Low-Rez?

Last year, BMW garnered plenty of attention for a series of Web-based films designed to entertain buyers and win sales. The effort cost a reported $15 million, much of it paid to big-name talent in front of and behind the camera. Yet even as the auto division readies a sequel, the company’s motor...

By Scott Leibs • Nov. 1, 2002