BetaNews Staff

Text messaging's potential could lead to huge growth for the mobile industry

If you are under 30, you’ve never known a world without texting. Even if you’re much older, messaging has been ubiquitous for so long, it’s easy to forget you never knew the power of your thumbs when you were a child. Text messaging can mean different things to different people. Some equate text messaging with SMS. For others -- and I fall into this camp -- text messaging is a wider catch-all for SMS and chat apps such as WhatsApp, Viber etc. That’s the definition we’ll be going with.

Trillions of texts are sent every day. It is a technology we are very comfortable with. And it’s not just personal messages we are happy to receive. Many research companies in the sector report that when consumers are asked how many A2P (Application-to-Person) SMS they receive from organizations each month, the figures the people quote are actually lower than the actual number of messages they receive. This is down to so many not regarding messages from organizations such as dentists and hospitals as being business-to-consumer (B2C) type messages when they actually are. 

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Adapt or get left behind: Why 'shift everywhere' is the new imperative for application security

Security padlock

Digital transformation is now an integral part of the success story of every modern organization. However, there is ever greater pressure on developers to speed up release cycles as the software on which organizations rely. This is the foundation for revenue growth, competitive advantage and long terms business success so the impetus to reduce lifecycles is built on commercial necessity.   

Organizations want to be the first to market with the latest and greatest software which can mean that risks are introduced as the pressure to meet a deadline surpasses the need to ensure that all code is free from any vulnerabilities. 

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Why Google's new AI search may be a bad deal for users

Google says its new generative AI feature will start a "new era of search" by "unlocking new types of questions" and "transforming the way information is organized." But a closer look at Google’s own promotional materials reveals a downside: you may have to face a barrage of ads every time you use it. But how many ads is too many? For Google, it seems, there is no limit.

Google offered a sneak peek at ad placements in its brand new Search Generative Experience (SGE) at an event for advertisers on May 23. There, Google revealed that ads would not only appear before and after the AI-powered snapshot, as originally announced, but would also infiltrate the AI-generated responses. And if the example Google gave is anything to go by, it's not a pretty sight.

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Supercharge your online visibility: 10 strategies at the intersection of social media and SEO

SEO search engine optimization

Visibility is everything in business. That used to include spending money on a billboard and a flashing sign, but today it's all about your web presence. Google reports that 97 percent of consumers look for local businesses online. If you're a single entrepreneur or freelancer, you must have a good presence in web to stand unique from everyone.

However, what exactly is an online presence? How do you stand out from the crowd when there are so many small enterprises vying for customers' attention? This manual will explain the advantages of building an online brand for you and show you how to do it successfully.

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A better way to conduct enterprise penetration testing

Software testing


Penetration testing for enterprise security operationalizes the function of security testing for an organization's offensive security program.

Centralizing penetration testing into a core function of the enterprise can provide significant ROI; however, it also requires a new level of considerations, that when applied correctly, can significantly improve overall security outcomes.

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Wary of a recession? Increase your investment in cybersecurity technologies

Leading organizations in all industries have accelerated their digital transformation and change management over the past three years, and for a good reason. According to Deloitte, meaningful digital transformation initiatives can unlock up to $1.25 trillion in market capital across Fortune 500 companies, with similarly positive results demonstrated for mid-range and small enterprises.

The key word here is "meaningful." But what constitutes beneficial change management processes versus directionless spending?

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Driving digital transformation at scale: Key factors for success

Digital transformation

Digital transformation has become a crucial endeavor for organizations seeking to remain competitive in today's rapidly evolving business landscape. However, achieving successful digital transformation at scale requires careful planning, commitment, and a strategic approach.

Let’s explore the six game-changing factors that contribute to the success of digital transformation initiatives. From company-wide involvement to defining clear goals, selecting the right technologies, managing change, and setting benchmarks for success, these factors play a vital role in ensuring a smooth and impactful transformation journey.

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Five ways your business can bridge the cybersecurity skills gaps to find and keep top talent 

plugging a gap

We hear a lot about the cybersecurity skills gap, which the latest research puts at 3.4 million globally. There are lots of reasons why organizations find themselves dealing with a skills deficit -- from an actual dearth of qualified talent to internal factors including turnover, lack of budget/competitive wages, limited opportunities for growth and promotion, and lack of training. 

One aspect that is within a company’s control, but is often unremarked, is unrealistic hiring practices. While this can be a problem across all sectors -- after all, every business wants to be sure they get highly experienced people on board -- there seems to be a particular issue around cybersecurity hiring. 

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Building digital trust to support digital transformation and a distributed workforce

Digital Transformation

In the UK, we have recently witnessed several issues around trust. These issues center around the ethics and control of data access and use, interaction through the Internet, digital risk resilience and how digital technology has eroded trust. In particular, this applies to trust in the government, whereby politicians have been called into question over their behavior, policies, protocols, appropriate use of technology, and more, especially post-pandemic.

To this point, the current stand-off between the Covid inquiry and the UK government calls trust into question again. In this case, the debate is about the use of appropriate messaging platforms as the government made some of the most important decisions in a generation.

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Why cloud connectivity doesn't have to be complicated

cloud misconfiguration

Whether it’s a delay on the first leg of a connecting flight, buffering on Netflix, or a weak signal during a train journey, nobody likes it when a connection fails. We live in a world of instant gratification and downtime (even seconds) frustrates us all. 

That’s especially true for organizations that have migrated their applications and workloads to the cloud. A study by Netwrix determined that, on average, companies have 41 percent of their workloads in the cloud and plan to reach 54 percent by the end of 2023. What’s more, Flexera found that 89 percent of businesses using cloud storage embrace a multi-cloud strategy, and 80 percent of those organizations take a hybrid approach. Cloud strategies are becoming more popular, flexible and complex than ever.

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Cloud revolution: Reinventing IT infrastructure for the modern era

Cloud-enterprise

One of the greatest misconceptions about cloud technology? That it somehow downplays the significance of IT infrastructure. Nothing is more false than that. The importance of infrastructure to the success of the company has never been greater. That's because technology has never had a bigger role than it does now in assisting businesses in generating profitable growth, developing cutting-edge experiences, and conducting sustainable, accountable business.

The foundation of the modern "ever-ready" digital enterprise is infrastructure. Infrastructure serves as the framework on which businesses can run this enormous growth of potential with ease. It offers the computing, networking, workspace, and database platform characteristics required to execute the business-critical applications. Additionally, it offers the base upon which outstanding consumer and staff experiences can be created.

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Three ways to reduce expenses without sacrificing an employee's digital experience

Cloud money

The cost of supporting employee devices continues to increase, as does spending on network bandwidth and cloud services. Unfortunately, for many organizations, IT budgets are not keeping pace with the rising costs.

While IT spending is expected to rise in the next year, a large portion of that increase will go toward increased labor costs, as inflation and a stubbornly tight tech labor market will force companies to increase salaries.

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Solving the UK's digital identity dilemma

Earlier this year, a report was published in the UK with the aim of tackling the UK’s productivity and innovation crisis. Tony Blair and Lord William Hague are fronting the recommendations made, with a particular view to encourage the widespread adoption of digital ID cards. This has driven a discussion around the general public’s distrust towards government-controlled data schemes.

What’s interesting is that much of the UK population probably don’t realize just how many government IDs they already have; think tax returns, benefits, council payments and, of course, driving licenses. But even so, does this mean the UK is ready for a formal digital identity card? Many are more than happy to keep these various forms of ID in a disjointed manner, despite the inconvenience and inefficiency. Yet, the key issue here is trust, and the public needs to believe there is no overreach when they log in to a service.

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Neobanks are on the rise: Can legacy banks keep pace?

Neobanks have shaken up the banking status quo since the introduction of PSD1 and PSD2, tempting customers in with user-friendly interfaces and streamlined processes. Legacy banks have struggled to keep up with the pace of innovation in the sector, and as a result, the industry is littered with rushed digital offerings that exacerbate the feeling that neobanks are pulling ahead in the digital transformation race.

In this day and age, having a low-quality digital banking platform is enough to turn customers away in favor of the digitally proficient neobanks. Customer loyalty doesn’t hold as fast as it once did, and customers are far more aware of the alternative services available to them at challenger digital banks. The traditional incumbents can’t continue to hope that their history and experience will win out as customers continue to experience low-quality customer service and deficient digital banking services.

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Why data mobility matters

While digital transformation strategies may have been accelerated by the pandemic, as workers return to offices, organizations around the world are beginning to contemplate moving applications back on-premises. And with financial pressures starting to bite, where and how data is stored is becoming even more important. It’s not purely a financial decision, however, as technical and security requirements need to be considered to maintain performance and protect against cyber threats like ransomware.

As a result, businesses are increasingly re-assessing their cloud strategies and weighing up moving workloads to the cloud, exploring different providers, repatriating back to their data centers, or a mix of all three based on their unique needs. But to be able to make the most of these different options, it's crucial that they pay close attention to their data mobility.

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