Clint Boulton
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Clint Boulton
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CIO eyes digital services in SD-WAN push
Earlier this year, Earthlink CEO Joe Eazor realized he needed a CIO to upgrade the company’s clunky legacy software and make its sales process more appealing to business customers browsing the website. Enter Jay Ferro, who led a digital transformation at the American Cancer Society (ACS) before joining EarthLink in July.Serving in a dual role as CIO and chief product officer, Ferro will also help develop and pitch peers on EarthLink’s managed network products, including a new software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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‘Cloud washing’ gives way to true cloud services
When CompTIA technology analyst Seth Robinson was researching his new report on the state of cloud computing in July some of the results were puzzling. The 500 business and IT executives who participated reported that their use of SaaS applications had declined since the last time CompTIA completed the survey in 2014. The data ran contrary to claims from every consultant, research firm and tech pundit.The head-scratching stat: 45 percent of CompTIA respondents said they used cloud productivity software, down from 63 percent in 2014; 51 percent consumed cloud email, compared to 51 percent in 2014; and only 35 percent consumed cloud analytics/business intelligence software, a decline from 53 percent two years ago. In all, 12 of the 14 applications CompTIA listed posted declines.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Why bots are poised to disrupt the enterprise
The proliferation of robots completing manual tasks traditionally done by humans suggests we have entered the machine automation age. And while nothing captures the imagination like self-directing machines shuttling merchandise around warehouses, most automation today comes courtesy of software bots that perform clerical tasks such as data entry.Here’s the good news: Far from a frontal assault on cubicle inhabitants, these software agents may eventually net more jobs than they consume, as they pave the way for companies to create new knowledge domain and customer-facing positons for employees, analysts say.The approach, known as robotic process automation (RPA), automates tasks that office workers would normally conduct with the assistance of a computer, says Deloitte LLP Managing Director David Schatsky, who recently published research on the topic. RPA's potential will grow as it is combined with cognitive technologies to make bots more intelligent, ideally increasing their value to businesses. Globally, the RPA market will grow to $5 billion by 2020 from just $183 million in 2013, predicts Transparency Market Research.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Why you should embrace SaaS ID management
Adopting single sign-on software to federate access to corporate applications is a key task priority for many CIOs seeking to make employees more efficient without sacrificing security.Experian has consolidated identity management with a single cloud application, laying the foundation for a hybrid cloud computing model that supports its credit scoring software. The company has standardized on software from startup Okta, which has quickly become a favorite among CIOs seeking to gain efficiencies in anything from adopting cloud and mobile services to onboarding employees. Experian CIO Barry Libenson.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Dollar Shave Club grooming AWS cloud services for smoother growth
If you asked a CIO to sketch the ideal modern IT architecture on a few cocktail napkins, it might resemble the system fashioned by of the Dollar Shave Club (DSC), the men's grooming ecommerce company that ascended from relative obscurity to prominence thanks to sound branding and this memorable YouTube clip.Running in a public cloud, the startup uses 22 custom applications to run sales and marketing campaigns and customer service, as well as a recommendation engine. The custom-cloud combination embodies the type of IT environment CIOs say they would build if they had a green field devoid of legacy architecture and technical debt.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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‘Digital laggards’ must harness data or get left behind
Consultants like to warn CIOs that if they don't embrace modern technologies to meet customer demands that they will be left in the dust by more nimble rivals. Such sky-is-falling proclamations have been taken lightly because they've been difficult to back up. However, new research from Harvard Business School (HBS) suggests that a divide is forming between organizations that have accelerated their digital transformations and those that are still figuring out a working digital model.Digital leaders, defined by HBS as companies that landed in the top quarter of its research, generate better gross margins as well as better earnings and net income than organizations in the bottom digital quarter. Leaders post a three-year average gross margin of 55 percent, compared to just 37 percent for the laggards. Leaders also outstrip laggards in three-year average earnings 16 percent to 11 percent. And in three-year average net income, leaders have the advantage 11 percent to seven percent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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How to tackle business disruption
Southwest Airlines CIO Randy Sloan remained in the airline's Dallas headquarters for nearly 40 hours last in July, as he and his team scrambled to find the technical problems that grounded 2,300 flights. Hunkering down, checking IT systems and strategizing in office war rooms for hours isn't ideal for any employee, let alone the IT chief. Southwest Airlines CIO Randy Sloan.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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U.S. cloud vendors adjust to Snowden effect, Privacy Shield
When whistleblower Edward Snowden shocked the world in 2013 by revealing that the NSA was allegedly siphoning data from U.S. internet companies, pundits proclaimed that winter was coming for American cloud vendors in Europe. Evidence now suggests those fears may have been overblown.IDC said this month that U.S. cloud vendors have increased their combined cloud infrastructure revenue two-and-a-half-times in Western Europe, topping $2 billion since the Snowden Effect was supposed to freeze the market. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft, Alphabet’s Google and IBM increased their market share by a third in the region, hitting 40 percent in 2015.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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HPE CIO tackles tough ‘spin merge’ with CSC
It’s become fashionable to call CIOs chief integration officers because they integrate acquired assets, blend on-premises infrastructure and cloud technology, and collaborate with several stakeholders on digital services. HPE Scott Spradley, CIO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise. You can call Scott Spradley, CIO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, a chief separation officer. Spradley is racing to complete his second major asset split within 12 months, extracting HPE's $20 billion enterprise services business in an $8.5 billion "spin merge" with Computer Sciences Corp. The technology services company will absorb HPE’s services business, acquired in a 2008 acquisition of EDS.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Why a security team embraces shadow IT
When you hear the phrase "getting ahead of shadow IT," it typically comes from a CIO who is implementing new technologies so that employs won’t take it upon themselves to purchase tools. But you don't expect such proactive practices from an enterprise's information security team, which a CIO often enlists to place a moat around corporate assets. Mike Bartholomy, Western Union's senior manager for information security Mike Bartholomy takes a different tack at Western Union. The financial services firm's senior manager for information security says that companies that try to block everything may see it backfire. "What we've seen happen in other organizations is that when you take something away that is a great enablement tool that may be moderately risky, you run the risk of pushing users towards something that is very risky," Bartholomy says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Why a security team embraces shadow IT
When you hear the phrase "getting ahead of shadow IT," it typically comes from a CIO who is implementing new technologies so that employs won’t take it upon themselves to purchase tools. But you don't expect such proactive practices from an enterprise's information security team, which a CIO often enlists to place a moat around corporate assets. Mike Bartholomy, Western Union's senior manager for information security Mike Bartholomy takes a different tack at Western Union. The financial services firm's senior manager for information security says that companies that try to block everything may see it backfire. "What we've seen happen in other organizations is that when you take something away that is a great enablement tool that may be moderately risky, you run the risk of pushing users towards something that is very risky," Bartholomy says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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10 acquisitions driving Oracle’s cloud strategy
Oracle craves cloud companiesImage by ThinkstockSince 2010, Oracle has been steadily acquiring cloud software companies, particularly SaaS providers that can help the business software maker grow its market share for software rented over the internet. The deals, including last month’s $9.3 billion blockbuster bid for NetSuite, are crucial for the company’s ability to keep pace with challengers such as SAP, Salesforce.com and Microsoft, all of which are forging their own aggressive strategies in the cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Nicholas Carr says tech ‘utopia is creepy’
Fully automated, self-driving cars are likely decades away from being a reality, says Nicholas Carr, the author whose books about technology and culture seek to curb the heady enthusiasm regarding the digitalization of everything. Nicholas Carr. “I think a lot of the visions of total automation assume that every vehicle will be automated and the entire driving infrastructure will not only be mapped in minute detail but will also be outfitted with the kind of sensors and transmitters and all of the networking infrastructure that we're going to need,” Carr tells CIO.com. Autonomous car proponents and technology enthusiasts in general will certainly disagree with Carr.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Hacked companies still prioritize innovation over cybersecurity
Eight out of 10 executives surveyed acknowledge that their companies had been compromised by cyber attacks in the past two years, according to a new study by KPMG. Yet less than half of the 403 CIOs, CISOs and CTOs the firm surveyed said that they had invested in information security in the past year.“We’re still seeing companies taking a passive or reactive approach toward cybersecurity, when in fact cyber should be a top-line business issue thought about and practiced company-wide," says Greg Bell, leader of KPMG's U.S. cyber practice. Bell spoke to CIO.com after publishing his “Consumer Loss Barometer" report in July.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IoT security suffers from a lack of awareness
As consumers we have become obsessed with connected devices. We like the idea of smart homes, smart cars, smart TVs, smart refrigerators or any machine that can be automated with sensors and an IP address. Yet fewer tasks in IT today inspire more fear than the prospect of protecting corporate networks from this proliferating wave of connected devices. The internet of things phenomenon expands the threat surface exponentially, in turn boosting business risk.But CIOs often aren’t aware of all of the devices that make inviting targets for hackers. "One of the fundamental issues that faces the internet of things is knowing that they're there and giving them some identity,” says Gartner analyst Earl Perkins. "You can't manage what you can't see."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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IoT security suffers from a lack of awareness
As consumers we have become obsessed with connected devices. We like the idea of smart homes, smart cars, smart TVs, smart refrigerators or any machine that can be automated with sensors and an IP address. Yet fewer tasks in IT today inspire more fear than the prospect of protecting corporate networks from this proliferating wave of connected devices. The internet of things phenomenon expands the threat surface exponentially, in turn boosting business risk.But CIOs often aren’t aware of all of the devices that make inviting targets for hackers. "One of the fundamental issues that faces the internet of things is knowing that they're there and giving them some identity,” says Gartner analyst Earl Perkins. "You can't manage what you can't see."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft wins battle for Boeing in war with AWS
Boeing's decision to run its aviation analytics applications on the Azure cloud computing software is a big win for Microsoft, which is chasing Amazon Web Services (AWS) in the high-stakes race to sell computing, storage and other infrastructure software over the internet. The aerospace giant based its choice largely on Microsoft’s willingness to help it develop applications to serve its 300 airline customers, which are starved for ways to optimize fuel efficiency and better manage fleets."The combination of technical acumen and depth, as well as where they're investing and how they're addressing the business customer, really matched up with our objectives," says Andrew Gendreau, director of advanced information solutions at Boeing's digital aviation unit. He tells CIO.com that Microsoft also impressed with its commitment to advancing its Cortana analytics and internet of things suites as well as augmented reality, which could play a big factor modeling aviation modeling.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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The doctor will see you now – virtually
Telehealth, the practice of providing care services remotely using digital technologies, took a big step forward at New York-Presbyterian last week. The hospital system, which sees more than 2 million people a year, is now offering patients the option to receive second opinions, urgent care and consultations via online portals and video conferencing services.The initiative is designed to improve patient outcomes while lowering healthcare costs, says CIO Daniel Barchi, who joined the hospital in December after serving as CIO at Yale New Haven Health System and Yale School of Medicine since 2010. Barchi says the program was well underway before he joined NYP. “Our CEO, Steve Corwin, had the vision for telehealth,” Barchi says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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CIOs question value of Microsoft’s LinkedIn buy
CIOs' views of Microsoft’s blockbuster bid to buy LinkedIn runs the gamut from dismay to cautious optimism. Some IT leaders fret that the $26.2 billion deal won't generate demonstrable value for customers while others are applauding what they see as a smart big data play. "My immediate response was, 'What the hell are they doing?,' says Brian Long, CIO of aerospace parts supplier Pattonair. Long, who views Microsoft's role in the enterprise as an enabler of Office productivity, is concerned that Microsoft suddenly wants a social network that drives sales and marketing endeavors. Long doesn’t think much of Microsoft trying to anticipate where it can tap in professionals' day-to-day life.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Windows 10 migration a low priority for some CIOs
Microsoft said last week that it won’t hit its target of one billion Windows 10 devices in use by June 2018, claiming that jettisoning its smartphone business is reducing the number of devices that could run its new operating system. However, with more employees electing to use other computing devices for work, migration to Windows 10 is not a priority for some CIOs who are busy procuring cloud services, honing their analytics software and otherwise tackling more pressing projects. Thanks to the proliferation of PC alternatives, including Macs and iPads, worldwide PC shipments declined 5.2 percent from the second quarter of 2015, marking the seventh consecutive quarterly decline, Gartner said last week. The research firm says upgrades to Windows 10 could jumpstart PC sales among businesses toward the end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here