The emergence of new media (such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube and even the virtual world of Second Life) is spelling new challenges for businesses. They have widened the scope for consumers to air their fury against any product imperfections or service inefficiencies they experience. They have in fact become a potent weapon like no other as the damage is instantaneous and global. Companies have to deal with them with a sense of urgency, […]
social networking
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The big spenders on technology are businesses and government agencies. They buy about 75 percent of the computing goods and services sold worldwide. Yet it is increasingly evident they are not driving the new ideas, excitement and powerhouse technology companies in ascent these days. “The cutting edge of innovation is on the consumer side — digital technologies for consumption activity, play, entertainment and social-networked communication — and not in corporations anymore,” observed Timothy F. Bresnahan, […]
Whoever said there’s not much new on the Web should have been around last week for the much-ballyhooed launch of Color – celebrated as one of the most exciting Web concepts to appear this year. If it lives up to its initial promise, Color represents a fundamentally new type of mobile social network that, in many ways, is almost the polar opposite of Facebook. So what’s so radical about Color? For one, Color has done […]
About 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies surveyed recently said they expect 15 percent or more of their applications to move to the cloud in the near future, Sarah Friar, managing director at Goldman Sachs, said Wednesday at ITSEF. That shift has even affected Goldman Sachs, “where we’re probably the most paranoid about letting go of these things,” she said. Cloud computing, mobile computing and social networking are reshaping the face of the information security […]
We’ve learned a lot about mobility since the early days of this decade when businesses and consumers alike got their first taste of 3G networks. The shift from 2G voice-centric networks to 3G data-driven networks has made it clear that the real “killer apps” are mobile applications – transforming mobile devices into extensions of ourselves and our day-to-day lives. Consumers and enterprise alike are starting to see the incredible potential for combining mobile applications with […]
The three dominant cloud computing models — Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) — are changing fast, as cloud providers reach up and down the stack to offer as close to a one-stop shop as possible. To understand how these cloud computing models are evolving and converging, it helps to know the history, said Jeffrey Kaplan, managing director of ThinkStrategies Inc., a consultancy in Wellesley, […]
Just five years since mobile VoIP services were first introduced, it is on the cusp of moving beyond an inexpensive alternative for making international calls to becoming an integrated component of unified social networking services, says research house In-Stat. The coming years are expected to be transformational as mobile operators and associated players work out how to respond to a forecast of nearly 139 million mobile VoIP users by 2014, say analysts. “Mobile VoIP is […]
The growth in popularity of web-based applications like social networking sites and even cloud computing software like Google Docs has raised more and more questions concerning security requirements. Particularly when it comes to the use of virtual and cloud environments for sensitive data hosting, rather than use of local data centres – does data protection now demand a new approach? Data protection schemes should always pursue pre-emptive tactics. In fact, nowadays it’s an essential requirement […]
In the era of WikiLeaks, it’s no wonder that business executives are feeling less secure about their organizations’ data. A recent study by Ernst & Young found that 60% of those polled perceive increased risk from the use of social networking, cloud computing and personal mobile devices at work. “Organizations are operating in a world that requires borderless security,” warns Bernie Wedge, an IT risk practice leader at Ernst & Young. “Information access by employees […]
The tremendous growth of the cloud computing market, despite shortcomings in some areas, is a testament to the level of pent-up frustration that exists within organizations of all sizes across nearly every industry with legacy on-premise software and systems, and the tangible benefits today’s leading cloud vendors are quickly delivering to their early adopter customers. As the year winds to an end, it is incumbent on all industry pundits to make predictions about what they […]
Most companies now talk of adding cloud capabilities to their product and service offerings, and a number of companies, such as Google, now claim to be cloud-based. Such trend leads to network operators, as well as test equipment vendors, to decide if cloud computing presents them with any opportunities particularly in the enterprise and consumer areas. What is cloud computing anyway? According to Wikipedia, cloud computing is an Internet-based computing, where shared resources, software and […]