Google’s Marissa Mayer says more women needed in tech
Women may have come a long way in the high-tech field in the last 10 years, but there's still a lot of room for growth, according to a group of female tech executives.
And Marissa Mayer, a vice president at Google, said we're just not doing enough to get more women into the high-tech field.
"I think what we're really playing is a numbers game, " said Mayer, speaking as part of a panel at CNet's Women in Technology panel at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week. "Right now, it's a really great time to be a woman in technology -- but there aren't enough women in technology. I worry that a lot of times the conversation gets focused on what percentage of the pie is women. And the truth is the pie isn't big enough."
Part of the larger problem, she noted, is that the United States is not producing enough computer scientists.
"We're not producing enough product designers. We need more people to keep up with all these gadgets, all this tech and these possibilities and the jobs of the future," said Mayer. "We need a lot more people and if we grow that number, then the number of women, by nature, goes up." Read more...
9 hot IT skills for 2012
Slowly but surely, many U.S. companies are loosening their viselike grips on IT hiring and looking to add new staffers to bolster business growth in the year ahead.
That trend is reflected in Computerworld's annual Forecast survey. Nearly 29% of the 353 IT executives polled said they plan to increase IT staffing through next summer. That's up from 23% in the 2010 survey and 20% in the 2009 survey. Altogether, it's a 45% increase in hiring expectations over the past two years.
"We're seeing [strong hiring] across the board," among organizations of all sizes, says Mike McBrierty, chief operations officer for the technology staffing division of Eliassen Group, an IT recruiting firm. He says there has been pent-up demand for infrastructure upgrades and investments that had been shelved over the previous three years.
The Forecast survey also revealed that IT managers may be thinking about innovation, not merely keeping the lights on, as they plan their staffs for 2012. Respondents said these nine skills will be in demand. Read more...
IDC: Economic slowdown won’t derail rebound in IT spending
Economic turmoil and uncertainty in the United States, Europe, and Japan has left plenty of IT vendors and stockholders fearful of whether more lean days lie ahead. Fortunately, IDC had some reassuring words to offer at a Web conference Wednesday: IT spending is holding fairly steady worldwide with mostly slow, steady growth on the horizon.
The overall report wasn't entirely upbeat, as IDC's growth projections for the PC market worldwide -- a longtime indicator of consumer confidence -- have declined since April. Still, IDC's overall projections for such product segments as storage, software, and particularly mobile devices worldwide, have become rosier. Read more...
More Americans own e-readers than tablets, survey finds
More Americans are using e-readers than tablets, according to a Pew Research Institute survey.
The Pew survey of 2,277 adults that finished on May 22 found that 12% of Americans owned an e-reader device in May compared to 8% who owned a tablet like the popular iPad
Also, ownership grew faster for e-readers like the Nook or Kindle than ownership of tablets over the six months between November 2010 and May, the Pew survey found.
The telephone survey found that Hispanic Americans are the fastest-growing ownership group of both e-reader and tablet devices.
E-reader ownership grew from 6% of American adults in November 2010 to 12% in May, Pew said. Read more...
Oracle Q4 net income rises 36 percent
Oracle's net income for the fourth quarter ended May 31 rose 36 percent to $3.2 billion over the same period last year, results that reflect growth in software sales but a slight dip in hardware revenue, the company reported Thursday. Total revenue for the quarter grew 13 percent to $10.8 billion.
New software license sales, which are considered a key indicator of growth and customers' attitude toward IT spending, rose 19 percent to $3.7 billion.
Hardware systems products revenue fell 6 percent to $1.2 billion.
For the full year, net income jumped 39 percent to $8.5 billion on $35.6 billion in revenue, a rise of 33 percent. Read more...
Oracle returns growth to Sun server business: IDC
Oracle logged a small milestone in its Sun acquisition during the first quarter, expanding sales of Sun's server hardware for the first time in three-and-a-half years, IDC reported Tuesday.
Sun's server business was already in decline when Oracle announced plans to buy the company a little over two years ago. Sales plummeted further amid the uncertainty over what CEO Larry Ellison planned to do with the business.
Oracle has worked hard over the past year to convince customers it will continue to invest in Sun's hardware, and those efforts appear finally to be paying off. Read more...
Infosys eyes buys in Europe, Japan, and healthcare sector
Infosys Technologies Ltd, India's No. 2 software services exporter, is on the hunt for acquisitions in Europe and Japan and in industries including healthcare and public services, its chief executive said on Sunday.
Speaking to Reuters a day after the company announced changes in its top-level management, S. Gopalakrishnan said Infosys was also seeking acquisitions in new areas like cloud computing.
"Our philosophy has always been that you plan organic growth,"
said Gopalakrishnan, who is set to step down as chief executive and become co-chairman in August.
"You keep your eyes and ears open, you have a dedicated team looking at acquisitions," he said. Read more...
Another key Republican calls for H-1B cap hike
There has been no rush by employers for H-1B visas since the recession began, but there is an increasing rhetorical push in the U.S. House to raise the visa cap.
At a special hearing by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in San Jose, Calif. Monday on high-tech growth policies, its chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), called for a liberalization of the H-1B cap.
Issa said that "there seems little doubt that federal policies and regulations have played a large role in hampering growth." Among other things, he cited the H-1B visa cap in his prepared remarks. Read more...