The buzzwords that will take 2017 by storm
The technology industry is full of jargon and buzzwords, which, if you’re not in the club, can often feel like a foreign language. When it comes to communicating new technologies and processes to other parts of the business, IT professionals need to be careful when translating these buzzwords into human-speak if they want to avoid a confused, blank look. It’s this confusion that results in a data breach, shadow IT activity, or missing out on investment in new IT equipment.
Whether it’s to educate yourself or others, we’ve de-coded the buzzwords. Now the next time someone asks you "what the blockchain you’re on about," rather than giving them SaaS, you can breakdown the meaning, benefit, and importance.
Most financial businesses in the UK worry about the effects of disruption
More than three quarters (78 percent) of financial organizations in the UK worry about what digital disruption can do to their industry, according to a new Fujitsu report.
The company claims this makes the financial industry the most concerned one, compared with retail, public and manufacturing, and utility sectors.
What's next for containers, unikernels, and coding
Everyone talks about containers. It became so huge that we think Docker has existed for a long time. The fact is that it has only started. We can observe that by the amount of changes we are seeing. Docker from two years ago is very different than Docker today. Products in its ecosystem are appearing every day and many are disappearing just as quickly. If there is a space we should turn our attention to, that’s containers.
At the same time, we have already switched our focus to other areas. Containers, by themselves, are the old story. We know what they are, we did our proof of concept (PoC), and we adopted them. The real question is what should we focus on now? What will this year bring?
IT departments dealing with 'unrealistic expectations' in project assignments
Just half of IT departments managed to complete all of the projects that they were assigned during last year, a new report by MuleSoft claims.
Based on a survey of 951 IT decision makers, MuleSoft’s Connectivity Benchmark Report 2017 says there is a widening IT delivery gap that is to blame for these results.
How enterprises can overcome SaaS' data fragmentation challenge
When the Great Recession hit in 2007, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) began to catch the attention of enterprise CIOs as a favorable way to reduce the CAPEX necessary to provide their businesses with world-class IT services, and deliver more predictable OPEX. Fiscal reasoning may have been the carrot-on-the-stick, but CIOs were just as smitten by the promise of a simplified IT environment. It took several years for SaaS to firmly establish itself in the enterprise -- gaining a true foothold in 2012 -- and the delivery model is now considered mission critical by most enterprises. The "hands off" environment, rapid deployment potential and lower upfront costs all contributed to SaaS’s disruptive shift.
Notably, however, when SaaS was first being considered as an enterprise option, many cautioned that its use should be rooted in "vanilla" business applications that would not require complicated integration with enterprise data. Remember, SaaS burst onto the scene as a way to provide the SMB market with quick and affordable access to robust, single-purpose capabilities such as CRM or human resource management, but the applications were not particularly good at exchanging data in real-time, across transactional environments. "The convenience of using SaaS applications can mask a significant IT challenge of integration, both with other enterprise applications and with data sources," warned CIO Magazine.
IT decisions makers and executives don't agree on cyber security responsibility
There’s a severe disconnect between IT decision makers and C-suite executives when it comes to handling cyber attacks. Namely, both believe the other one is responsible for keeping a company safe.
This is according to a new and extensive research by BAE Systems. A total of 221 C-suite executives, and 984 IT decision makers were polled or the report.
Demand for security pros in UK rises by 46 percent
To say that IT security professionals in the UK are in demand would be a severe understatement. A new report by Experis says there has been an increase of 46 percent in the demand for both permanent and contract IT security professionals.
The report, entitled Tech Cities Job Watch, says companies are putting more emphasis on long-term investments.
Net neutrality repeal? Bad idea, say IT pros
The vast majority of IT professionals (82 percent) that manage computer systems and Internet services of US-based businesses are in support of net neutrality.
This is the conclusion of a recently released report by Spiceworks, which tackles the topic of net neutrality and how its abolishment might affect businesses.
How tech writers can benefit the enterprise
The need for clear, concise documentation within a company is more paramount than ever. Customers don’t read any more, they use documentation. How should customers learn about how to use a product? Where can they find more information? Who should handle an escalated issue? Why are users ultimately doing what they do? All of this may sound like a no-brainer, but it’s a stumbling block for many, many companies.
Let me give a quick example of what I mean. I’ve been fortunate to work for a variety of tech companies over the last decade as a technical writer and documentation specialist -- places ranging from Google to Facebook to gaming companies and financial institutions. But what I’ve noticed time and again is a lack of documentation, particularly internal-facing documentation used within a corporation.
UK will face a shortage of three million highly skilled workers
By 2022, the UK could be missing approximately three million highly skilled workers, according to a new annual CEO survey by PwC. The report says that, by that time, there will be 15 million high-skill jobs in the country. This state will actually come as a result of automating low-skill, routine tasks, which will place more emphasis on higher-skill, agile roles.
Another interesting conclusion is that more than nine million people could be chasing four million jobs. This is according to the government’s State of the Nation report.
Few UK retailers confident about their customer experience
Retailers are seriously lacking confidence when it comes to delivering a seamless, connected experience across channels. This is according to a new report by SAP and PwC. The report, based on a poll of 300 retailers and more than 2,000 consumers, says less than a fifth (17 percent) of retailers are confident in their capabilities.
More than six in ten agree siloed business units are hurting their efforts, and a third say they are having trouble implementing the "single view of the customer". Just eight percent have successfully done this, the report claims.
IT spending will increase by 2.7 percent in 2017
Gartner has tweaked its IT spending predictions for 2017, and now says the three percent increase in spending is not exactly realistic. It's going to be less -- 2.7 percent to be exact, which is still a positive prognosis, keeping in mind we're talking about growth.
The reduced spending is mostly to blame on the "wait-and-see" approach many companies are taking, caused by political and economic uncertainty.
One in three companies plans to embrace DevOps by 2019
Almost half of large organizations (47 percent) have a DevOps approach to at least some, if not all, of their projects. This is according to a new report by Redgate Software, entitled State of Database DevOps.
The company says it has polled 1,000 SQL Server professionals all over the globe, with more than half working at companies with 500 employees or more.
How to take control of BYOD bandwidth use
The trend for increasing numbers of employees and customers bringing their own devices into a workplace can seriously impair a businesses’ access to the Internet.
The problem is that as more mobile devices connect to the network, a business can quickly discover that its cloud-based applications, payments systems, accounting, stock control, customer relationship management (CRM) and business applications have become hopelessly sluggish.
How omnichannel strategies will evolve in 2017
The messaging landscape has seen big changes in 2016, and its evolution is set to continue over the next 12 months. Omnichannel has been around for a while, but 2016 in particular has seen the concept truly take flight and become a key player in the growth of messaging.
With instant messaging apps making more noise, and adding larger enterprises to their commercial list, the developments in chatbots, and ever-expanding IoT, 2017 is set to see more activity in the communications ecosystem than ever before. Here are some of the things that will happen over the next 12 months, to shape omnichannel strategies of the future.
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