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By 2017, 84% of IT leaders will look to IT infrastructure involving a direct, secure, physical or virtual connection between a company and its partners, customers and employees, compared to just 38% of organisations today.

That’s the key finding from a global study by Equinix which polled more than 1000 IT decision makers across five continents on the ‘interconnected enterprise’. Plenty has been written in this publication concerning the workplace of the future,...

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While there are many factors that can contribute to the success of an organisation, a huge threat to its health can be security risks. A security issue can often affect an enterprise more than even a period of low sales or decreasing growth rate.

The fact is, though, organisations tend to not focus on security measures until a breach or a significant hack takes place and by then it is too late. Hackers can steal company or customer data, which can have a big influence on profits and...

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Conventional wisdom says you need a physical office to run a business. But that wisdom is so stuck in its conventions that it is essentially obsolete. In the past, if you didn’t have an office (or garage, apartment, basement) in which everyone could work together, you didn’t have a business.

Today, technology has enabled a world where people don’t have to be physically together to work together. Businesses can be more dynamic and diverse than those confined to a...

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There have been plenty of creative reasons over the years to explain how and why enterprise collaboration initiatives have failed, from a lack of transparency from the boardroom to the shop floor, to lack of employee buy-in, and many more besides. Here’s another one, from video conferencing provider Highfive’s latest survey: employees are overwhelmed by the number of options they have to communicate with one another, they get too distracted and start goofing...

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IT projects used to have a fairly well-defined success criteria - the rollout. Application, appliance, or device enabled? Check. Features turned on? Check. Functional and high performance for the end user? Check.

Unfortunately, a successful rollout is no longer a sufficient barometer of success. All of the same criteria applies, but there is a new criteria, one more difficult to tightly define - adoption. Today’s users know that they have a choice to go rogue and...

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A new report from Bitglass has revealed that more than half (57%) of end users polled do not participate in a company BYOD program because they do not want employers’ IT departments to have visibility into their data and applications.

The paper, entitled ‘BYOD Security 2015: Rise of the Employees’, conducted two surveys on BYOD adoption and challenges with 2000 regular employees and 227 IT security professionals quizzed. Bitglass argues that while BYOD has room to...

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IBM has announced Cloud Security Enforcer, which enables companies to gain visibility into third party cloud apps and control them securely.

The inspiration for the latest product release from Big Blue emanates from the continued rise of shadow IT, according to a recent study by IBM. One in three employees – a number which increases to one in two for the millennial workforce – uploads and shares company data to third party apps, usually without the knowledge or consent of...

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A study of more than 1000 US federal employees from mobile security provider Lookout has found more than 40% ignore policies prohibiting mobile device usage.

The survey’s findings, naturally, bear parallels to the revelation regarding Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email to perform state duties – a point which Lookout dutifully notes. Yet the Democratic presidential candidate is far from alone. A quarter (24%) of those polled admitted sending work documents to...

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If you do not have a strategy in place to cater for tomorrow’s workforce, then it should be rushing up the priority list immediately.

The working mentality is shifting, with the traditional office setting increasingly moving towards obsolescence – and a new study from Domo and CEO.com argues the next generation of employees expect a mobile-first workplace from their employers.

The research went straight from the horse’s mouth, polling more than 2000 college...

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A C level-focused report from Robert Half Technology argues that improving customer experience and driving employee efficiency will be the key drivers for technology to deliver growth in their business.

The paper, entitled “IT Innovation: Harnessing Technology to Attract Skilled IT Talent”, examined – as one would expect – hiring strategies for CIOs as mobile technologies become more pervasive, yet also explored the future landscape of the office. 96% of the CIOs...

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More and more workers understand the benefits of collaboration tools in the enterprise – but continue to be thwarted by the tools at their disposal.

That’s the key finding from survey data released by Alfresco Software, which notes a distinct generational gap in terms of how employees like to get their work done. Nowhere is this better encapsulated than in terms of company-issued collaboration tools; 71% of millennials face challenges with the software, compared to 45% of the...

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Updated The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, alongside the equivalents for the states of British Columbia and Alberta, have issued a document offering guidance for companies looking to implement BYOD programs.

Citing “an increased blurring of the lines between professional and personal lives” and “employee concerns that privacy is at risk”, the 16 page missive goes through the various stages of rollout, from getting senior management onside, to privacy...

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Two thirds of UK businesses have lost company data, while one in three IT decision makers said their company had lost important data more than three times.

That’s the key finding from global information management provider Crown Records Management, which argues – as regular readers of Enterprise AppsTech will be more than aware – lax practice from employees contribute to the data disasters.

According to the survey, which polled more than 400 IT executives in companies with more than 200 employees,...

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We live in a world that has seen incredible change in the way we do ordinary tasks. Just as GPS changed the way we travel, online retailers changed the way we shop, and review sites changed the way we pick restaurants, social networking has changed the way we communicate and collaborate with our friends and family. Social networks make it far easier to keep up to date on what your friends and family are doing, plan events and share life milestones.

In the secure enterprise collaboration...

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A new study from AIIM reveals how organisations are struggling when it comes to mobile enterprise content management (ECM) deployment.

Four in 10 of the 282 respondents admitted they had zero mobile access to content, while only 10% of enterprises had a “smooth” BYOD programme. 20% said their BYOD implementation was “working okay but with some issues.”

While there are evidently teething troubles with content management on mobile, those who have implemented ECM...

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When it comes to safeguarding sensitive business information, passwords are often a company’s primary line of defence. But as employees need to remember a growing number of different login credentials, these defences become prone to human error and consequently vulnerable to attacks.

A recent study conducted by Intermedia last year found that the average employee relies on 13 different web applications at work, each requiring a different password. 89% of...

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Flexible working arrangements offer a win-win solution for employees and their managers.

According to a recent study by Regus, a global provider of business and office space, 72% of global businesses report that increased productivity is a direct result of flexible working practices. 68% of enterprises indicated that flexible...

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A new report from Fruition Partners argues CIOs are not applying traditional IT service management (ITSM) processes to cloud technologies.

The survey, which buttonholed 100 CIOs, revealed more than four in five (83%) say ‘cloud sprawl’ makes IT management more complex. Looking at it another way, IT departments simply are not applying the same testing standards to the cloud as they would for in house IT services. One company, in the construction sector, found they had 300...

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By Ryan Faas

Mobile and cloud are fundamentally reshaping enterprise computing. They have already changed the overall relationship between IT and the rest of an organisation. Shadow IT has become both a challenge and an immense opportunity for CIOs, but seizing that opportunity requires a shift in mindset. To be successful, CIOs and IT staff must work with lines of business as fully equal partners and trusted advisors.

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Enterprise mobility management solutions provider Globo has announced that Milton Keynes Council is utilising its technology to enable its employees to work more flexibly and save office space.

The move, which currently manages 300 devices with plans to move to 1100, will “play a key role in maintaining services to the town’s growing population in the face of pressure on resources,” according to Paul Wheeler, the council’s head of IT strategic...