5G cellular networks are one of the most-hyped broadband technologies in the last decade. They’re designed to make cellular networks more efficient and reallocate more of the spectrum to data than to voice capabilities, increasing throughput. And 5G add-ons like mmWave promise superfast performance when you are very close to a cellular tower.But do they really make a difference on user devices that businesses use both for their own staff’s work purposes and for the services they sell to consumers? The answer, a new report from telecom consultancy Opensignal, says yes.To read this article in full, please click here
Business chat has come into its own, with Microsoft debuting its Teams system for Office 365 in March and Google promising to deliver Hangouts Chat for G Suite later this year. What had been a market owned by niche technology companies—Slack for its Slack for Teams and Atlassian for its HipChat—suddenly became an arena for the 800-pound gorillas of office software, Microsoft and Google, as they each seek to own the whole collaboration and communications experience within an enterprise.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
We all love our smartphones and tablets, but boy do we miss our big screens, mice, and keyboards when doing complex work on those mobile devices. That’s why the notion of a smartphone that acts like a PC when connected to those peripherals has kept recurring ever since the iPhone redefined mobility for the modern era.But so far, reality has not delivered on that promise of the mobile-on-desktop notion. Now, Samsung is trying its hand at this puzzle, with the Dex dock available for its new Galaxy S8 and S8+ smartphones.[ Review: Samsung’s Galaxy S8 is an unpleasant smartphone. | iPad Pro vs. Surface Pro vs. Pixel C vs. Galaxy TabPro S: The “tabtop” tablet/laptop hybrids compared. ]
The journey from the Lapdock to the Dex Station
The Motorola Lapdock back in 2011 was the first dock to put smartphone screens on a computer monitor, as well as provide a full-screen browser and connections for physical keyboard, mouse, and other peripherals. But the constrained smartphone apps weren’t much easier to use as big-screen windows, and the Linux-based browser was too limited.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When you choose a productivity platform like Microsoft’s Office 365 or Google’s G Suite, the main focus is on the platform’s functionality: Does it do the job you need?That’s of course critical, but once you choose a platform, you have to manage it. That’s why management capabilities should be part of your evaluation of a productivity and collaboration platform, not only its user-facing functionality.You’ve come to the right place for that aspect of choosing between Office 365 and Google G Suite.[ InfoWorld’s deep look: Why (and how) you should manage Windows 10 PCs like iPhones. | The essentials for Windows 10 installation: Download the Windows 10 Installation Superguide today. ]
Admin console UI. Both the Office 365 and G Suite admin consoles are well designed, providing clean separation of management functions and clear settings labels, so you can quickly move to the settings you want and apply them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
When you choose a productivity platform like Microsoft’s Office 365 or Google’s G Suite, the main focus is on the platform’s functionality: Does it do the job you need?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
For months now, we’ve been hearing about Microsoft Teams, Microsoft’s much-heralded Slack killer for corporate chat. It’s now in official release (what Microsoft calls “general availability”) as part of Microsoft’s Office 365 enterprise plans. Sadly, Teams is underwhelming in its formal debut and definitely not a match for the hype Microsoft has been providing since October 2016. For a product so late to market, Microsoft should have delivered much more.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Ever since I can remember, Silicon Valley has been enamored with the idea of group editing of documents. Very little good writing gets done that way, of course. It’s like the joke that a camel is a horse designed by committee. Office 365 vs. G Suite: Meeting collaborationTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
The iPad makes a great laptop, and nowhere is that more obvious than in its productivity tools. Apple showed the way years ago with its iWork suite (Pages, Numbers, and Keynote), and Microsoft has validated the notion with its Office suite (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint). Of course there's also Google G Suite (Docs, Sheets, and Slides), which includes mobile versions of the apps for iOS.iPad productivity smackdown: Word processing comparediPad productivity smackdown: Spreadsheets comparediPad productivity smackdown: Presentations comparediPad productivity smackdown: File collaboration comparedTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Google has been trying for years to get businesses to abandon Microsoft Office in favor of what it now calls G Suite, the collaboration-oriented trio of Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, plus companion apps Gmail and Drive. Microsoft has long been the productivity standard-bearer, with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, supplemented by Outlook and most recently OneDrive.Office 365 vs. G Suite: DocumentsOffice 365 vs. G Suite: SpreadsheetsOffice 365 vs. G Suite: PresentationsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Microsoft is now more than a year into reworking its Outlook clients and server software to truly support its mission to bring its Office communications tools everywhere: the Mail, Calendar, People (contacts), and Notes components in Outlook.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Microsoft really, really wants to own all of your office work, so it keeps finding new tools it hopes you will add to your Office 365 portfolio. (All require an Office 365 account to use.) The latest are Delve for file discovery, Sway for modern-style presentations, and Planner for task management. But are they any good? To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
The days of Microsoft's System Center may be numbered. With the introduction of Windows 10, Microsoft has begun championing a different approach to systems management -- the same approach that Apple created for the iPad and iPhone, and Google later adopted for Android. Organizations adopting Windows 10 can take advantage of this new approach, allowing IT to manage all client devices -- Windows 10 PCs (as older Windows versions are retired), Macs, iOS devices, and Android devices -- from the same consoles, using the same policy-driven technology in what is called an omnidevice strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Microsoft announced late Tuesday that it has joined Google's Android for Work program and will support Google's container technology for mobile application management in a future release of Intune, Microsoft's own enterprise mobility management (EMM) server. The Microsoft blog post gave no timeline.Android for Work, initially released in winter 2015 as part of an Android 5.0 Lollipop update, brought to Android the same level of enterprise-grade protection for mobile apps that had previously been available only to Apple's iOS devices or Samsung's Android devices running Samsung's own Knox technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft announced late Tuesday that it has joined Google's Android for Work program and will support Google's container technology for mobile application management in a future release of Intune, Microsoft's own enterprise mobility management (EMM) server. The Microsoft blog post gave no timeline.Android for Work, initially released in winter 2015 as part of an Android 5.0 Lollipop update, brought to Android the same level of enterprise-grade protection for mobile apps that had previously been available only to Apple's iOS devices or Samsung's Android devices running Samsung's own Knox technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
"Office productivity" has meant Microsoft Office and Outlook on a Windows PC for nearly two decades, and most of us take it for granted as part of the technological woodwork. New versions of Office and Outlook long ago outstripped the functionality 99.9 percent of us need, and except for jarring UI changes like the introduction of the Ribbon in 2007, we take new versions in stride.But the digital office has undergone a fundamental, positive change in the past few years, one that should cause a rethink by users and IT alike.[ Office 365 is now ready to deploy across all your clients. InfoWorld shows you: How to make document sharing really work in Office 365. • What works and what doesn't in Office 365 collaboration • What works in Outlook on Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android. • How to migrate to Office 365. | Road map: The coming revolution of the lowly desk phone. ]
The rebirth of Microsoft Office is (hopefully) only the start
Five years ago, I would have said that Microsoft Office and Exchange were dying dinosaurs, given Microsoft's active development of crappy mobile versions and continued crippling of the MacOS versions.To read Continue reading
Most of the work for setting up Office 365 collaboration happens on the back end, where you define and manage Active Directory users and associated policies and set up SharePoint and OneDrive access, if applicable.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Until recently, a functional version of the OneDrive app wasn't available for Windows or MacOS, so many people learned to use OneDrive as part of Office 2016 apps, as descried in Part 2 of InfoWorld's Office 365 document-sharing how-to series.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
The easiest way to share Office documents is from Office 2016 itself. All the apps allow you to share the currently open document, and apps on some platforms also let you share files from the file list, even if they are not currently open.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Now that you have OneDrive installed on your computers and mobile devices, all the files stored in OneDrive from those devices can be shared with others -- not only Office files.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Go to almost any meeting these days and you'll see a sea of laptops around the table and sometimes some iPads or other tablets. That lets people look up information, take notes, and do on-the-fly research during the meeting.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Galen Gruman