"I think it's making it easier for the IT directors and CIOs to ask for investment in things that normally get 'back-burnered,' " Baschab said. "It's a huge public embarrassment when [a breach] happens. And once it's out, there's nothing you can do about it." - John Baschab

"In the dot-com days, R&D efforts were consistent with that period's land-grab mentality," says John Baschab, co-author of The Executive's Guide to Information Technology (John Wiley & Sons, 2003). Companies were focused on increasing their Web real estate by using technologies like scalable Web architectures to grow their Web presence, visual design techniques to draw people in and back-office systems that could support millions of customers, he says. But for the most part, these plans did not materialize. "IT R&D today focuses more on practical, pragmatic issues," Baschab says. - John Baschab

[Giving network access to the wrong people] is usually inadvertent but can often happen for the sake of convenience,” says John Baschab - John Baschab

“It’s the same trade off of ‘important vs. urgent’ that most executives in any job role make; it’s no different for IT and just takes discipline to pay attention to it and get it done.” - John Baschab

“Small and midsized business environments are just as complex today as large enterprise environments were just a few years ago. You need the ability to rely on secure, rapid processing, regardless of your company size,” says John Baschab, executive vice president and co-founder of consulting and staffing firm Impact Innovations Group. “Moving your monitoring, operations, and hosting to an NOC can facilitate that.” - John Baschab

Another way to ensure connectivity is by having multiple pathways for bandwidth, such as putting in a second T1 line. But John Baschab, co-author of “The Executive’s Guide to Information Technology,” warns that such a strategy can get very spendy. - John Baschab

"[You] add a specific override for incidental personal usage. If there are specific things a company is worried about, they [can] also add to the policy, such as what documents can be sent via email, etc.," says John Baschab, executive vice president and co-founder of Impact Innovations Group. "Some companies will also add potential consequences for violation, such as termination or other disciplinary action to the policy. The task then falls to IT to determine . . . the effort they should put into monitoring and specific actions they take when they find a violation." - John Baschab

SMEs can save time in the long run if they use the initial assessment of the company’s technology assets to create an update schedule specifying which systems get patched regularly. The plan should also include which individuals are responsible for patching each system, says John Baschab, co-author of “The Executive’s Guide to Information Technology.” - John Baschab

“An MBA, like any other kind of training, is helpful, but only if the new knowledge, training, and opportunities it creates are in line with your career aspirations,” Baschab says - John Baschab

If the company has developed a great tool that fits well into a data center, that can be a tremendous boon. But if their doors are shuttered next year, that happy product-acquisition feeling won't last long. - John Baschab

"I think it can be a source of considerable cost savings for the IT manager, particularly in the SME market. But ironically, it is the large companies that are the traditional customers of those vendors most likely to have the internal scales to make this a meaningful service offering," - John Baschab

"If I'm starting a green field, I'm going to look long and hard at VoIP, and I believe from where I sit that there is a compelling business case, especially if you have satellite offices and multiple locations," says Chad Holmes of Impact Innovations Group, an IT services firm. "You no longer have to knit together things. There are dedicated solutions out there." - Chad Holmes

"Two and half years ago, I priced a Compaq iPaq solution with a rugged case when it first came out, and after adding the software and middleware, you were talking about $2,000 per device. Now you are talking about $500 per device for an equivalent setup," says Chad Holmes, from IT services firm the Impact Innovations Group. "You also have operating systems that are conducive for mobility, along with networks that are faster, more open, more secure, and packet-based." - Chad Holmes

"Intercepting outside e-mail services, such as Google or Hotmail, is difficult because the IT staff must trap network traffic, instead of simply reviewing e-mail," - John Baschab