Every week, I share the most interesting and useful tech articles that I’ve found over the past week. This week’s top articles focus on why big IT projects fail so often, a new look at the “native vs. mobile web” debate, and more. I hope you find them useful:

Smartphones: Business Risk or Opportunity
Business owners, CIOs, and IT leaders face a dilemma: How to harness the efficiencies of mobile devices while defusing the security risks. The fact is, many end users just don’t practice safe security habits. Those end users could very well compromise your company, unless you approach mobile the right way. My advice: The same thing I’ve said for the last couple of years. Treat the device like a thin client and use mobile web apps. This approach doesn’t store data on the device itself, and lets you keep your data safe behind your own firewall.

Why do big IT projects fail so often?
A recent study revealed that IT projects with budgets of at least $15 million fail 40% of the time. Those types of failures not only look bad, they can threaten a company’s very existence. Why do IT projects fail so often? It’s a problem I’ve focused on recently, which you can read all about here.

Native app vs. mobile web: Not a simple choice
The biggest mistake companies make when approaching the mobile app decision: Assuming the “native or mobile web app” choice is either/or. Regardless of your plans for native apps, you still need web apps that adapt to mobile browsers. After all, you can’t control how users access your web apps. Maybe they’ll use a PC. Maybe they’ll use a smartphone. Maybe they’ll use a tablet. You can’t control it…and you also can’t force them to download an app. As such, mobile web apps are becoming essential.

A wake up call for CIOs
If you read the tech press at all, you’ve no doubt heard the “CIO position is dying” argument. Frankly, it’s ludicrous. Think about it: We’re entering an era where technology plays a larger role than ever before…and people are trying to say that the CIO role is diminishing? If anything, it’s becoming more important. It’s changing. Gone are the days of simply supporting the business and controlling technology. These days CIOs face pressure from all sides. Here’s a short paper that explains these growing challenges, and outlines one way to address each of them.