Joe Townsend explores what is happening to Apple and why IT professionals should care. We can all learn a lesson from Apple’s success—and its failures. If we are complacent in our jobs as testers and configuration managers, our “personal stock” will drop dramatically.

Companies seem to agree that cloud computing is the way things are going, but they are using different strategies to get there. Amazon is the largest cloud service, with Google's new announcements giving the giant a run for its money. But a SAP model—that may or may not be a cloud—is emerging.

Assumptions are a fact of life. Without making assumptions, it’s unlikely that many decisions would get made, and certainly fewer projects would ever get launched. However, sometimes assumptions come back to haunt us. Adrian Reed looks at how to handle assumptions when working on projects.