Tag: mobility

Microsoft intros MSN beta

Microsoft campusSoftware giant Microsoft said it has introduced a beta version of its new MSN.

The company said it’s designed for a world where the cloud and mobile are the name of the game.  It has content from major worldwide media and comes with productivity tools.

The software is available on the web right now and will soon be available for Windows, Apple iOS and Android too.

Microsoft claims MSN’s existing audience is 425 million people.

Steve Lynas, the MS suit in charge of MSN, waxed lyrical about the thing. “Microsoft’s DNA is about empowerment,” he said weirdly.  “The new MSN brings together content from over 1,000 publishers with experiences that help people live fuller lives.  We’ve completely reimagined the experience to embrace this opportunity.”

Media mates include the Guardian, the Independent, Sky News and the Telegraph.  It has struck similar deals in other countries across the world.

It’s got reviews of over 1.5 million bottles of wine, and 300,000 recipes.

You can have a dekko at Microsoft’s latest rock star by clicking here.

Business failing to see mobility value

Matt Bancroft, Mobile HelixA survey of 300 IT decision makers in the UK and the US has revealed that 86 percent of their companies fail to use mobility to change their businesses and make more money.

Matt Bancroft, president of Mobile Helix, which commissioned the survey said that while widespread enterprise mobility is “still its infancy” making good choices today will increase revenues.

“Mobility has the potential to disrupt business in much the same way as the internet, but at the moment, cost and complexity challenges lead people to frequently ignore the enormous possibilities available,” he said. He sees the value of mobility as consisting of three stages – turning existing enterprise apps into mobile apps, adding mobile capabilities to existing apps and making new mobile apps as where necessary.

The survey shows that 87 percent of the CIOs think most employees will gain from increased access to CRM, ERP and SharePoint on mobile devices.  But 66 percent of CIOs think it is too complicated while 72 percent say it’s too expensive to integrate mobile into legacy applications.

The CIOs are also concerned about development, support and security.

Half of businesses have no integrated digital strategy

ibm-officeA survey conducted by IBM has shown that half of  decision making executives at SMBs don’t have an integrated digital strategy.

But to be fair, 65 percent of them know that not having social media strategy is a huge barrier.  And over half of  them don’t really understand how to position social media in their businesses.

The key points of interest are digitising front offices, analysing data from customer interactions on social channels and seeing future trends.

IBM believes that companies that have fused their digital and physical operations together using big data, mobile and cloud are 26 percent more likely to outperform their competitors.

Naturally, IBM has an axe to grind here – it wants to sell its own products to make sure it outperforms its competitors too.

Alvea updates Cloud offering

cloud1Managed security and cloud company Alvea has bolted on some updates to the Alvea Cloud Attached Storage service.

It aims to address demands in enterprise mobility and bring your own device, by helping businesses protect corruption of business data with centralised cloud based storage, and off site data protection and recovery.

Alvea’s service will now include file sharing and syncing, mobile security, and cloud storage SLA capabilities, with a focus on using mobility for collaborative data, across different devices and in the cloud.

Customers now have access to team collaboration, mobile security policy – or remote file deletion and sandboxing synced iOS and Android files – and improved offline seeding. There is now Microsoft Hyper-V and Sharepoint backup, and active delivery integration, plus Kerberos authentication.

Alvea’s Neil Gardner said enterprise mobility and BYOD have become top priorities for businesses.

“The enhanced features of Alvea Cloud Attached Storage backed by support and expert advice from our partners means businesses can have peace of mind that their data is secure, synchronised and easily accessible in the cloud,” Gardner said.

Resellers need wider mobility portfolios

DominicWordsworth_newResellers must begin to start building wider mobility portfolios and get cosy with disties in a bid to exploit the latest opportunities within the market, Computerlinks has said.

The company, which earlier this week announced an agreement in the UK and Germany with MobileIron, said the recent BYOD trend had been  good for starting conversations about mobility strategies organisations.

However, Dominic Wordsworth, product group manager at the company pointed out that the industry was now moving beyond just securing devices to considering how they can make staff not only mobile but also productive.

“MDM was the ‘knee jerk’ reaction by many to BYOD (both vendors and end-users) – securing the devise is an important start, but enabling and managing applications is the real challenge,” he told ChannelEye.

He pointed out that the companies with insight who initiated pilot mobility projects were now starting to move into company-wide rollouts.

“[This gives] the channel plenty of opportunities to get involved as businesses need to evaluate what applications are needed, who needs them and why. Vanity projects such as handing out iPads to executives are becoming more scarce, as organisations are becoming to demand real value from all of their devices,” he added.

Many channel partners are offering mobility products which allow IT departments to manage devices, however, Wordsworth claimed it was becoming clear that security was not the only factor at play here.

“To exploit the latest opportunities in the market, resellers should be building wider mobility portfolios around devices, applications and content. Focusing on one aspect of the mobility pitch won’t bring in those high-value contracts as organisations will generally be looking for the whole package rather than just a point solution.

“One way resellers can get ahead of the competition is by working with distributors that can offer extra services to help companies get mobile more easily, such as pre-sales support which can gives them access to current market expertise and knowledge,” he said.

Computerlinks claims that its new partnership with MobileIron will further continue to help resellers to drive their customers to deliver useful business applications to users over enhanced mobile networks to a secure endpoint, whatever the device.

It has also promised training for its channel partners around the new announcement, as well as helping them take advantage of its highly qualified pre and post sales consultants to support their own teams.