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Enterprise Mobility Bytes | Week of – February 26 – March 4, 2018
Key Drivers Empowering Business Teams to Deliver Apps at Scale
If you’re looking for ways to empower your business teams, in collaboration with IT to drive your transformation, join 451 Research & PowWow Mobile on Wednesday, March 7 at 1:00 pm ET/10:00 am PT for an exclusive webinar to discuss the key drivers empowering business teams to deliver apps at scale.
Apple Takes The Lead In Wearables Market
Apple has broken away as the clear leader in the wearables market, thanks to the popularity of the Series 3 Watches, IDC reports. After closely trailing Fitbit and Xiaomi for several quarters, Apple came out on top in the fourth quarter of 2017, shipping 8 million Apple Watches. The Cupertino company captured 21 percent of Q4 market share, up from 14.4 percent in Q4 2016.
Top 5G Announcements From MWC 2018
Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018 has seen dozens of 5G-related announcements, spanning devices, modems, radios, plans, spectrum, and trials. ZDNet rounded up the biggest announcements on 5G made during MWC in Barcelona this week, and the information gained from carriers, vendors, and networking companies.
Digital Transformation — The Road Ahead
Digital transformations aren’t designed for short-term gain. Thinking of a digital transformation as a set of activities designed to enhance your business processes or a solution to today’s issues instead of looking at it as a way to achieve agility, ensure your survival and engage a future filled with uncertainties could end up being dangerous. While disruptive companies are creating new ways of doing business, some companies are just trying to catch up with the new business engagement methods created by digital channels of communication.
Mobile-First Solutions Driving Long-Term Success
Mobile-first solutions are starting to dominate the enterprise sector. This is according to Cassie Lessing, CEO, Strato IT Group, developers of mobile business applications. According to Lessing, more businesses are realizing that a mobile-first business – in which employees rely on their mobile devices to conduct business – is better set for long-term success. Globally, enterprise mobility strategies, which focus on mobile device use for business purposes, are already a top priority as most seek to better engage with customers and create a more efficient workforce.
VMware Unveils New Edge Computing Solutions To Bolster Enterprise IoT Efforts
VMware continued its enterprise Internet of Things (IoT) push at Mobile World Congress, unveiling a host of new edge computing solutions that address use cases in asset management and surveillance. The solutions are being developed through industry partnerships with firms such as Axis Communications, Wipro Limited, and more, a press release said. By focusing on edge computing, the VMware solutions could make it easier for business users to securely and effectively harness the data created by IoT deployments.
Google Adds AI, Collaboration Tools To G Suite Via Hangouts Chat
Google is adding bots, artificial intelligence and integrations between G Suite and Hangouts Chat in a bid to up its collaboration game. According to Google, Hangouts Chat is generally available and Docs and Calendar will get more AI features. These features in G Suite are critical given how rivals are coming at collaboration from different angles.
PC Device Shipments Dropped 2.7 Percent Last Year
The market for personal computing devices remains in flux as global shipments dropped 2.7 percent in 2017, according to the latest data from IDC. The research firm has a broad classification for personal computing devices (PCDs), with the market including traditional PCs (desktop, notebooks and workstations) as well as both slate and detachable tablets.
2018 Will See Enterprises Adopting AI & Blockchain In Larger Projects
After conducting various pilots in 2017, enterprises are adopting deep technologies like Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence for larger projects this year, Dr. Prashant Pradhan, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Developer Advocate, IBM India/South Asia told ETtech.
Microsoft Makes More AI Programming Interfaces Available To Developers
Microsoft is continuing to roll out more application programming interfaces (APIs), which enable developers to add customizable AI features to their applications. On March 1, Microsoft made available a paid public preview of its Custom Vision service; increased the set of recognizable faces to one million in its Face API; and made generally available in the Azure portal its Bing Entity Search service.
Dropbox Inks Integration Pact With G Suite
Dropbox has announced that it’s partnering with Google to develop a series of cross-platform integrations that connect G-Suite’s cloud tools with the Dropbox collaboration platform. The partnership is notable because Dropbox, which officially filed for an initial public offering last week, and G Suite are competitive rivals. In its IPO disclosure, Dropbox noted that it competes with Google in both the cloud storage and content collaboration markets.
Google Releases Beta Version Of Flutter Mobile App Development Tool
Google this week released a beta version of Flutter, a new mobile application user interface framework that the company first announced last year. Developers can use Flutter to speed up the process of building native mobile apps for both Android and iOS devices because applications and interfaces made with Flutter are built from a single code base. They compile directly to the native processor architecture code on mobile devices and can access all of the iOS or Android platform’s API and services according to Google.
New On The CIO Agenda: Helping Procurement Succeed In Digital Transformation
With digital transformation becoming a key business strategy for enterprises, the CIO and IT decision makers may feel these days like the winners of the corporate popularity contest. They’re being asked to provide increasing amounts of support and advice to many internal business functions to ensure that their transformations are accomplished successfully.
Yes, DevOps Is All About Business Growth, Especially The Digital Variety
Everyone understands the need for DevOps and agile practices, but making it all work for the enterprise is another story. A survey of 1,300 executives just released by CA Technologies and Freeform Dynamics finds that while 75 percent recognize that these approaches drive significant business success when implemented together, only a relatively small proportion — about one in five — consider the consistency, depth and breadth of usage of these practices to be high.
Slack Working To Keep Rivals At Bay To Remain Killer Collaboration App
In the technology world, you either want to be the Killer App or the Killer App Killer. In that respect, collaboration platform upstart Slack is in a pretty good position. Slack is already replacing legacy collaboration tools like email and instant messaging in many enterprises. The 4-year-old company is striving to become the online hangout for everyone at work-the place where everything and everyone is a search query or a message away.
Smart Office Tech Is Widely Adopted, But Results Are Mixed For Many Professionals
Smart office tech deployments hold promises of improved collaboration, energy efficiency, safety, health, and more. But does the technology measure up in reality? In January, ZDNet’s sister site, Tech Pro Research, surveyed 246 professionals to get their opinions. Most of the respondents (70 percent) said they work primarily in a traditional office environment, compared with the other 30 percent who work remotely as freelancers or telecommuters. Over three quarters said they currently use some form of smart office technology, with videoconferencing apps being the most popular by far.
Visa Launches CyberSource Token Management Service Globally
Visa has introduced Token Management Service, a solution designed to unify management and secure customer payment data. Token Management Service aims to enable an integrated view of payment preferences and behaviors across a merchant’s commerce platforms, processing environments, geographies, payment types and card brands. Token Management Service forms part of Visa’s CyberSource payment management platform.
Samsung, PTC Go In Together On New IoT Initiatives
Samsung Electronics is widely known for smartphones, televisions, washing machines and other consumer-oriented IT products. But lately it’s been putting a lot of investment into IT greenfields, including the internet of things. The huge South Korea-based conglomerate on Feb. 26 announced a new partnership with Boston-based PTC that it says will enable industrial IoT customers to get to market faster with smart, secure, connected products and services that improve operational efficiency.
Nokia Attempts A Smartphone Comeback With Android
Remember when Nokia was the powerhouse of mobile phones? Remember when Windows Phone was Nokia’s primary operating system? Under a new owner, HMD Global, the brand is trying to make a comeback to the top with Android smartphones.
Microsoft’s Steady Retreat From Consumer Products Is Nearly Complete
Two intertwined stories define Microsoft’s recent history with consumer products and services. One is about bets that never paid off. The other involves shifting resources to business units that are thriving: enterprise software and cloud services.
Digital Transformation Of Cities: Creating Smart And Engaged Communities With IoT
What makes a city a “smart city?” Some would argue that it has to do with the degree to which the city is staying abreast of technology advancements, but that is too one-dimensional. Smart cities require an integrated approach to IoT, connectivity, AI, distributed computing and other technologies.
SAP Offers Enterprise Customers A Consumption Model For Cloud Apps
SAP has released a new consumption-based model of software delivery for its SAP Cloud Platform designed to simplify the cost and management of enterprise apps. The move is a big change from traditional on-premises software delivery that vendors such as SAP have long adhered to where applications are licensed on an annual basis for a fixed price and usage is not a factor.
Juniper Says Security Limits Faster Growth Mobile Banking
Juniper Research estimates that over 2 billion users will access retail banking services via smartphones, tablets, PCs and smartwatches in 2018, up 10 percent year-on-year (y-o-y). The new research, Retail Banking: Digital Transformation & Disruptor Opportunities 2018-2022, found that accelerated adoption in key emerging markets such as India and China means that mobile banking users now represent 50 percent of the global banked population.
How AI Is Transforming The Media Industry
The media and entertainment industry has seen its share of digital transformation over the last few decades – be it desktop publishing, high-definition digital video, video on-demand, digital printing, or online news portals and mobile apps. Now AI is beginning to transform media and entertainment organizations and processes even further.