What Mobile Trends Should Enterprises Expect In 2017?
Two thousand sixteen will be regarded as the breakthrough year for workplace mobility. With employees leading the smartphone-revolution, businesses are now leveraging mobile (and other) technology to create a more engaged, efficient and connected workforce. But as the next generation of employees emerge, new products become available on the market and data security threats increase, what should enterprises expect in 2017 and beyond?
Eight Top Digital Transformation Stories Of 2016
CIOs are spending 18 percent of their budget in support of digitalization, a figure expected to increase to 28 percent by 2018, Gartner analyst Andy Rowsell-Jones told CIO.com in October after surveying 2,600 CIOs worldwide. So as we hurtle toward 2017, CIO.com is taking a look back at some of the top digital transformations that showed up on our radar in 2016.
IT Spending Expected To Pick Up In 2017
Last year, many IT leaders didn’t have high hopes their budgets would grow in 2016. But as they look ahead to 2017, optimism has taken hold, at least according to a recent report by staffing and IT services firm TEKsystems. The company polled more than 700 North American IT leaders and found that 49 percent expect their IT budget to increase next year while 39 percent expect IT spending to stay the same. Last year, a similar survey by TEKsystems found that only 37 percent expected their IT budgets to grow while 51 percent expected flat budgets.
How Cloud Platforms Are Powering A Revolution In Enterprise Apps
A new ecosystem of innovative robust enterprise applications has grown up around cloud platforms such as Salesforce, and companies that exploit these apps and platforms report achieving significant competitive advantages, says a new white paper from The FactPoint Group and ICIX. In particular, forward-looking businesses are using these new solutions running on the Salesforce App Cloud platform to replace legacy-applications and platforms and unify their organizations around a single information platform.
SADA Digital Transformation Survey
SADA Systems 2016 Digital Transformation Survey polled 350 IT professionals found digital transformation is a high-priority, but even then, such projects don’t always go so well. One noteworthy survey stat: Only one-in-four (23 percent) IT departments said they were “satisfied” with the outcome of their digital transformation project.
Crystal Ball-Gazing – Technology Growth In 2017
Another year over, a new one about to begin. Andrew Lawson, SVP, North Europe, Middle East & Africa and Managing Director, UK & Ireland at Salesforce, gets out his crystal ball to place some bets on 2017 tech.
Agile Workers Could Represent 50 Percent Of Workforce By 2019
It’s always interesting to look at the workplace of the future; and a new report released by Randstad Technologies argues that by 2019, agile workers could comprise as much as 50 percent of the workforce. First off, let’s outline what Randstad defines as agile; the report describes it as “the strategic ability to anticipate talent needs, adjust in real-time and utilise workers from a variety of employment arrangements.” The research findings were a surprise to the company, which argued the traditional employment model is ‘evolving’.
Microsoft Releases MARCO Data Set To Develop More Insightful AI Apps
Capping an AI-themed week at Microsoft, the company released MS MARCO, a data set of 100,000 questions and answers that researchers can use to train their artificial intelligence systems. The software maker’s own researchers based MS MARCO, short for Microsoft Machine Reading Comprehension, on anonymized data gleaned from the real-world queries posed to the company’s Bing search engine.
What Bluetooth 5 Will Bring To Internet Of Things Devices In 2017
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group has finalized the Bluetooth 5 specification. In a statement, Bluetooth SIG said the enhancements in the Bluetooth 5 standard will be able to accommodate the influx of connected devices over the next several years. The need to improve security, particularly on devices connected to the internet of things, is an increasing concern of consumers and product developers.
Five Key Considerations In Selecting A Digital Transformation Platform
In today’s business world, the new corporate focus is on digital business transformation. IDC expects the percentage of enterprises creating advanced digital transformation initiatives will more than double by 2020, to almost 50 percent. A digital transformation can be enterprise-wide in scope. Or, the initiative may be more focused, perhaps beginning at a departmental-level to attain incremental improvements. So what foundational and functional aspects should companies consider in selecting a platform to help them in their digital transformation journey?
App Market Expected To Grow To $98.03bn By 2021
A new report titled “Mobile Enterprise Application Market by Software” from Research and Markets has predicted that the mobile enterprise application market size will grow from $48.24bn in 2016 to $98.03bn by 2021, at a compound annual growth rate of 15.24 percent from 2016 to 2021.
Vodafone Builds Cybersecurity Centre For Enterprise Customers
Vodafone Hutchison Australia has contracted NTT-owned Dimension Data and Australian Securities Exchange-listed enterprise cybersecurity firm FireEye to help it build its first Cyber Defence and Response Centre. The CDRC will provide event monitoring, threat protection and intelligence, and incident response to help protect Vodafone Enterprise and its customers against online security threats, as well as assist with the aftermath of an attack.
Microsoft Officially Launches Zo.ai, More Bot-Building Tools
Microsoft launched officially its latest chat bot, Zo.ai, along with a new external AI web site with information on its various AI-related projects. The company also made available a preview of a new Calendar.Help preview designed to make Cortana, Microsoft’s personal digital assistant, more useful in scheduling meetings. Technology that Microsoft acquired when it bought AI-scheduling startup Genee in August this year is key to this new feature.
Google Adds New Option For Managing Access To G-Suite Apps
Administrators in charge of Google’s G Suite range of productivity applications now have a new way of managing personally-owned iOS devices in the enterprise. Google this week introduced what it described as an agentless way to manage personal iPhones and iPads being used to access enterprise applications and data. Google’s new Basic Mobile Management option for iOS is different from other Enterprise Mobility Management tools in that it lets administrators manage iOS devices without requiring users to install a profile or an agent on their devices first, the company said.
IBM And BMW Want Watson To Help Drive Your Car
IBM Watson could soon be helping you to drive your car, as IBM’s cognitive computing unit is set to work with BMW Group to explore how the technology could aid cars of the future. The partnership will see a team of BMW researchers and engineers located at IBM’s global headquarters for Watson Internet of Things in Munich, Germany, as the companies work together to develop and improve intelligent assistant functions of BMW cars. BMW’s headquarters are also located in Munich.
