Many times, especially when the words come from a vendor, it's hard to decipher hype from reality and marketing from actual trends. Yet I've found most vendors, and their leaders, to be incredibly useful when trying to get a grip on a specific technology trend. After all, they're immersed in their specific business focus; they spend their days educating themselves, their clients and users and tracking everything and anything related to their technology product. That's why I found an IDC story on the storage industry so fascinating this week. The writer interviewed EMC CEO Joe Tucci, who is predicting major changes in storage technology, deployment and strategy this year. He's expecting big vendor consolidation and new ways IT leaders will be managing data and their data centers in the next few years. He also provides some great insight about how his company is going to change to meet the new customer needs and why he sees information lifecycle management as a key element moving forward. Whether you're undertaking a new storage approach now, or plan to in the future, this Computerworld article is a great read to keep up on the technology and marketplace and boost your knowledge of storage technology as it advances.

In the meantime, here are some recent career announcements about colleagues taking on new leadership roles and other professional moves:

Oliver Bussman has been named CIO at Fireman's Fund Insurance.

Gary Cantrell is the new VP and CIO at Textron.

Bill Maguire has been named CIO at Virgin America.

Spirit Airlines has named Scott Allard as CIO and VP.
 
Varian Medical Systems has named Jessica Denecour as VP and CIO.

Mark Hammersmith is now CIO at Wachovia Securities.