In this week's issue of Computer Weekly, we look at the key technologies that retailers are turning to for IT-enabling customers' Christmas shopping. We examine research revealing the huge cost of application software that fails to meet requirements; and we talk to one of the pioneers of agile software development. Download the new issue now. 

Design teams across the world collaborate to create and develop prod­ucts. Unfortunately, IT organizations face serious challenges when collaborative teams share large files. This white paper will assess the strengths and weaknesses of the four technologies most commonly used to enhance file sharing for distributed teams. 

Developing a Software as a Service (SaaS) enterprise resource planning (ERP) request for proposal (RFP) is different from on-premise, requiring more attention to the vendor’s financial viability. In this expert guide, readers will get advice on the right questions to ask when purchasing SaaS ERP. 

The majority of user authentication schemes today still use userid and password. The burden to users of managing large numbers of userids and passwords has led to proposals for Federated Identity systems, where a single set of credentials can be used to authenticate with several organisations, which have agreed to work together as a federation. 

After carefully weighing competing options, Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility chose Quantum's DXi-Series solution with deduplication technology for its data protection system upgrade. This case study explains why they made that choice. 

Choosing a cloud vendor in today’s market can be a challenge.  This market profile from Taneja Group provides an objective review of current cloud infrastructure and management, application platform, and service provider solutions from leading vendors as well as key takeaways for IT leaders to consider when selecting a vendor. 

The market for email archiving is growing fast due to a real need for control risk and increased productivity in organizations. Access this Bloor Research paper to explore the email archiving systems and services available. Discover the strengths and weaknesses of major players in the market today. 

This tip guide from SearchCRM.com shares Gartner's expert insights on the fragmented social customer relationship management (CRM) market and how it will continue to evolve in the next three years. 

In this white paper, Rajesh K. Gupta, Electronic Arts' senior manager of applications for business intelligence (BI) and data services, explains how EA avoids many costly problems due to timely data access. Read this now to gain insight into how EA deployed job scheduling software and what benefits it reaped by doing so. 

This white paper features results from a study by Aberdeen Group on mid-sized (or mid-market) organization on performance management. 

Read this now to learn how single-view software could enhance your customer relationship interactions with more insightful data. 

This SellingPower white paper explores four strategic ways that sales managers can win by leveraging virtual tools for internal team collaboration, client presentations, training and more.