Articles about COVID-19

A pandemic-induced shift to remote work, combined with relentless technological advances such as generative AI, has resulted in a 'workquake', causing a rapidly evolving landscape in which enterprises must adapt to new technologies, working practices, and business models without established procedures.

New research from Doherty Associates identifies a growing complexity avalanche for IT teams. Smaller teams, in particular, report an increase in the breadth and depth of tasks in addition to business-as-usual duties.

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We're continuing to feel the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in many areas, not least in the impact that it’s had on consumer behavior.

In order to cope with the shift in the way that people interact with businesses many have turned to increased automation and use of AI. We spoke to Sateesh Seetharamiah, CEO of enterprise automation specialist Edgeverve, to find out more about these changes and what they mean for the longer term.

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Whoever said 'crime doesn't pay' clearly did so before the advent of the internet. A new report shows that if cybercrime was a country it would be the third largest global economy, valued at $10.5 trillion by 2025. Some 33 billion records are estimated to be stolen in 2023 -- a huge increase of 175 percent from 2018.

The latest Cybercrime Statistics Report from Independent Advisor, shows that last year the cost to US businesses of an average cyberattack amounted to a huge $4.35 million. In addition, 83 percent of organisations got attacked more than once.

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Video conferencing and collaboration tools like Zoom catapulted to popularity during the pandemic as organizations made the shift to remote working.

But data published today by Finbold shows that even as we return to more normal working patterns Zoom remains the most downloaded business app in the US, with Teams in second place.

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In the USA, the COVID-19 pandemic is pretty much over. You no longer need to wear masks everywhere, and life has largely gone back to normal. In China, however, the virus is still wreaking havoc -- residents of that communist country still face regular lockdowns.

Unfortunately, according to Apple, the ongoing COVID-19 situation in China has negatively impacted the production of both the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Sadly, this will lead to delays. While this is bad news for Apple and its shareholders, it is also tragic for those that were hoping to buy one of these phones for the upcoming holiday season. In other words, Little Johnny may not get the phone he wants under the tree this year.

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Innovation calls upon us to challenge existing paradigms. Women in technology understand this all too well. Many of us have stepped into roles that were traditionally dominated by men. We’ve had to swim upstream to establish our bona fides.

Personally, I’m proud to have achieved a host of "firsts" in my career, and today I’m surrounded by creative thinkers who are applying new technology to approach old problems differently. In my world, challenging existing paradigms is par for the course.

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There are moments in everyone’s lives when they become aware that they are living through history. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its global lockdowns, was definitely one of those times.

In a bid to document the "personal, cultural, and societal impact" of the global pandemic from a number of different perspectives, the Internet Archive has created a giant COVID-19 web portal for anyone to explore.

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The 'management versus employee' battle on WFH continues -- but have managers recognized why hybrid working has become such a problem?  Without face-to-face interaction, remote workers have far less trust in the information provided by distant colleagues -- or distant business partners/ suppliers/ customers. And that is leading to a breakdown in relationships across the board.

Furthermore, the pandemic has exacerbated differences in working attitudes: for every ambitious individual wanting to make a fast impact on the business before moving on to the next challenge, there is another taking the quiet quitting approach, coasting along doing just enough to get by.  How do the former engage the latter or monitor their progress to ensure key tasks are done -- especially when they have zero trust in the business information currently available? The stand-off will be both inevitable and painful -- especially given the continued challenge to recruit talent.

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The average enterprise now manages approximately 135,000 endpoint devices. But in spite of large budgets spent on endpoint protection, an average of 48 percent of devices -- or 64,800 per enterprise -- are at risk because they are no longer detected by the organization's IT department or because operating systems have become outdated.

A new study conducted by the Ponemon Institute for Adaptiva also finds 63 percent of respondents find that the lack of visibility into endpoints is the most significant barrier to achieving a strong security posture.

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There was already a shortage of cyber skills before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and since then we've had a perfect storm of home working and the Great Resignation to make things worse still.

But is there an unexploited resource out there that could help fill the skills gap? Sonny Sandelius, assistant director of workforce programs at cyber security training skills company SANS believes there could be in the form of an army of the hobbyists and DIYers.

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The world of work has changed quite considerably over the past few years, driven by a number of factors, not least the pandemic.

Many of these changes have been positive, but some, in particular the shift to hybrid working, have brought challenges too. Some tasks are simply more difficult to do remotely.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a technology leapfrog beyond anything we’ve seen in decades. But now that we’ve made this leap is there any going back? And do we have the right technology for enterprises to keep up with new demands?

According to Pew Research, as of around two years into the pandemic, roughly 60 percent of U.S. workers who say their jobs can mainly be done from home (59 percent) are working from home. Our research found that digital experiences like online gaming, streaming and telehealth increased dramatically during the early days pandemic. And now, technologies and experiences like cloud gaming caught on during the pandemic are exploding. 

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When the world shut down in March 2020, many of us envisioned a two-week work-from-home stint, followed by a prompt return to office life. Little did we know that the business world, as we knew it, would change forever.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the overnight shift to a remote workforce was done out of necessity. But, over the past two years, companies have realized that this new operations model can have many business benefits, including cost savings associated with physical office space and a better work/life balance for employees.

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With COVID-19 as the backdrop, the last two years have been both scary and exhilarating for IT teams as they delivered innovation at previously unimaginable speeds.

During this time, CIOs have overseen the enablement of remote working for millions of employees and shifted numerous legacy systems to the cloud. But as we emerge from the IT battlefield of COVID-19, what does the post-pandemic landscape look like? What new challenges will the coming months pose, and how can IT departments prepare themselves for the next wave of disruption? Below are three recommendations for where to focus IT efforts in the near term while continuing to drive business value by leveraging the speed and power of modern innovations. Let’s begin by looking backwards.

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Covid-19 has, of course, had an immense impact on health, society, industry, and economies. Just three months before the first wave started to rapidly sweep the globe in 2020, it had practically never been heard of. Yet as soon as it emerged, entire industries were shut down while others were severely disrupted. Workers on mass were directed by governments not to travel or to work from home wherever possible, and those that had underlying health conditions were forced to self-isolate. It felt like the world as we knew it was turned upside down overnight. Businesses had no experience of such calamity, nor had they any contingency plans that came anywhere close to being adequate. The rule books were simply torn up overnight.

Most businesses had to adapt on the fly, and rapidly. Every day felt like another firefighting day, and as soon as the fires were out, along came the next wave or variant. As a result, manufacturers had to rapidly change their operations in response to supply and demand chain volatility or workforce availability. Changes to technology platforms to support remote workers had to be implemented in weeks, if not days. There was no time for proper planning, feasibility studies, risk assessments, or preparing a detailed business case with return on investment projections. Change simply had to just happen quickly.

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