Cloud and software as a service (SaaS) applications are great for businesses – but they need a solid infrastructure underpinning it. According to IDC, security, bandwidth optimisation and automation are key to more organisations analysing SD-WAN for their operations.

The study, which gauges the views of more than 1200 enterprises across 11 countries, assessed how software defined networking (SDN) is moving into the enterprise. According to the respondents, bandwidth optimisation was the most important...

BlackBerry’s strategy in moving into software and security over hardware appears to be paying dividends: the company’s shares have shot up by 19% after posting GAAP revenues of $238 million (£178.1m) in its most recent quarter.

The company’s adjusted EBITDA was $50 million – a positive number for the fourteenth consecutive quarter – while software and services revenue was at a record $185m GAAP, 77% of total revenue.

Speaking to analysts after the results were announced,...

More than two thirds of healthcare organisations say some form of bring your own device (BYOD) is allowed in their hospitals – up 13% from this time last year.

That is the verdict from Spok, a secure communications provider for clinical industries. The study, whose results were put in an infographic, polled more than 350 healthcare executives, and not surprisingly found data security the biggest reason why organisations were concerned about a BYOD model.

Physicians...

Workers in the UK are ‘largely optimistic’ about the impact automation will have in the workplace, according to a new report from Workfront.

More than four in five (84%) of the 2,000 office workers surveyed by the company agreed with the sentiment that “the use of automation in the workplace will let us think of work in new and innovative ways”, with a similar number (82%) saying similar with the chance “to learn new things as the workforce moves towards more...

Facebook’s enterprise-focused collaboration tool, Workplace, has got another blue-chip client in the form of Walmart, the company has announced.

The social giant has seen more than 14,000 companies sign up to Workplace in the past 10 months. Facebook opened up Workspace to all organisations in October last year.

“Workplace is helping to further accelerate Walmart’s digital transformation as they work...

Enterprise mobility management (EMM) provider SOTI has announced what is claimed to be the first solution managing mixed mobility and IoT deployments with support for Linux.

The Linux support is part of the latest update to SOTI MobiControl, the firm’s flagship EMM product. The company argues Linux mobility management support has been ‘largely ignored’, and where it does exist, been only partial and proprietary. 

The update will aim to “protect Linux devices against unauthorised...

Microsoft laid out more of its vision around artificial intelligence (AI), mixed reality, and the importance of collaboration over individualism at its Ignite event in Orlando today.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, outlined to the audience the four methods of enabling digital transformation (below); modern workplace, business applications, applications and infrastructure, and data and AI, to empower employees, engage customers, optimise operations, and transform products.

“When you think about the...

It’s often been the more optimistic viewpoint that instead of making employees redundant, artificial intelligence (AI) will free workers up to be more creative. Yet hard data now backs up that assertion in the form of a new report from CCS Insight.

The study, which polled more than 650 employees across five regions, found that while 70% of respondents fear AI will affect their job in the coming decade, only 13% say the technology is affecting them currently. Despite this, one in three see artificial...

Apple’s shiny new iPhone X will include ‘Face ID’ biometrics – but security practitioners appear to have their doubts over the technology’s perceived benefits.

Cloud security software provider Bitglass polled 129 attendees at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas in July and found that for one in five (19.4%) respondents, facial recognition was considered the least effective security tool, only ahead of password-protected documents (33.3%).

Fingerprints – cited by 3.1% -...

In case you missed it, Apple held a small event earlier this week. Though a fair amount of what was unveiled was leaked previously, of course, it was official confirmation of the iPhone X, 8 and 8 Plus, as well as Apple Watch Series 3.

All very nice – but what was there for the enterprise observer?

Not a lot, according to Michael Finneran. Writing for No Jitter, Finneran said the event “delivered little...

VMware is expanding the Mobile Security Alliance (MSA) with six new members coming on board to help organisations protect their information at the device, user, app, and data level.

The move, announced at VMworld Europe, sees Bay Dynamics, CipherCloud, Entrust Datacard Corporation, Gurucul, Intercede, and Kaymera join the alliance. The 10 current entrants are Appthority, Check Point, FireEye, Lookout, Palo Alto Networks, Pradeo, Proofpoint, Skycure, Veracode and Zimperium.

To give an idea about the breadth of...

Microsoft has announced that it is expanding its Teams collaboration product to include employees from other companies, alongside unveiling new developer tools.

“Guest access has been one of the top requested features for Teams among our customers, and we’ve been working hard to get it right,” wrote Lori Wright, general manager for Microsoft Teams in a blog post announcing the news. “Today, Teams is getting even better with the rollout of guest access to all Office 365 commercial and...

Adobe and Microsoft have announced they are expanding their collaboration with the two companies becoming each other’s preferred providers on a variety of use cases.

Adobe Sign will become the preferred e-signature solution across the Microsoft portfolio, while Microsoft Teams while be the preferred collaboration services for Adobe Creative Cloud, Document Cloud and Experience Cloud, and Adobe will make Azure its preferred cloud platform for Adobe Sign. The overall portfolio includes the 100 million...

Enterprise mobility management (EMM) provider MobileIron has announced its latest Apple release, which aims to help companies deliver more Macs – and secure them – into their organisation.

The company is going down the millennial route in explaining the increasing prominence of Macs, with VP strategy Ojas Rege telling this publication it is a “perfect storm” for the Apple devices. The press materials cite studies from Moosylvania and Brand Keys – the latter admittedly being two...

Another day, another set of figures which emphasise the continued dominance of iOS in the enterprise.

This time, figures from Egnyte, scraping data from more than four billion 'activities', found 82% of enterprise tasks were performed on Apple’s OS compared with 18% on Android. For desktop, three quarters (75%) of tasks were performend on Windows compared with 25% on macOS, while for browsers Google Chrome, with 61%, was by far the most popular, ahead of Internet Explorer (18%) and Firefox...

Dell has announced the launch of a new rugged tablet which aims to help field services workers thrive whatever the conditions.

The rugged device, called the Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet, offers up to 16 GB of memory – double that of previous iterations – a multi-touch glove capable display, as well as a variety of handles and straps aimed at ease of use and comfort for mobile environments.

Dell has a variety of punishing environments to test these devices – as

Apple has announced a new partnership alongside global consulting provider Accenture to help companies go further in mobile through iOS.

As per the press materials, the companies are partnering to ‘help businesses transform how their people engage with customers through innovative business solutions for iOS.’

Accenture will create a dedicated iOS practice within Accenture Digital Studios, with experts from Apple on hand, including visual and experience designers, programmers, data scientists and...

Appdome has announced it now supports leading enterprise mobility management (EMM) vendors in the form of AirWatch, BlackBerry and MobileIron.

AirWatch and MobileIron’s EMM SDKs for both iOS and Android are now alongside BlackBerry Dynamics SDK, allowing organisations to integrate EMM services on Appdome’s platform, either codeless or coding in minutes.

Users can also add single sign on (SSO) to any mobile app through Appdome, enabling the app to leverage SSO services based on various industry...

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Simplifeye, a company based in New York, has announced it is working with Apple device management provider Jamf to help mitigate the security of patient information on wearable devices.

The startup provides what it calls a ‘next generation cloud system’ which syncs with existing patient management software. Healthcare teams can see medical records on any device – in this instance, an Apple Watch, iPhone, and iPad.

Jamf, a

Google has announced the launch of Chrome Enterprise, a subscription service which aims to help organisations looking to roll out the search giant’s devices – and potentially help Google better infiltrate the enterprise market.

The service, which costs $50 per device per year, has a variety of features, including single sign-on support, support for Google Play and Android apps on Chromebooks, as well as integration with on-prem management systems and infrastructure via Microsoft Active...