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Category Archives for "Network World Wireless"

10 free iMessage apps to supercharge your Messages in iOS 10

There's an iMessage app for that!With the launch of iOS 10, Apple has opened the floodgates by integrating third-party apps within its stock Messages app—and you can find them all within Apple’s dedicated iMessage App Store. Check out some of the best free ways to animate, coordinate, and add some flair your messages.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google offers $200K for top prize in new Android hack challenge

Google yesterday announced a six-month bug contest that will pay up to $200,000 for an Android "bug chain," one or more successful exploits of previously unknown vulnerabilities.Dubbed "Project Zero Prize," it differed from hacking contests that take place over one or two days: Researchers can submit entries from now until March 14, 2017. In that regard, Google's contest resembled the limited-time bug bounties that rival Microsoft has offered to focus on, among other areas and applications, in Windows 10's Edge browser.In the case of multi-exploit entries, Google also departed from the usual contest or bounty rules by encouraging researchers to submit each link in the bug chain as the flaws were uncovered, rather than wait until all were in place and exploitable.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Digital transformation boosts captive offshore center growth

Global in-house centers — wholly owned captive offshore operations that deliver offshore IT services to their parent companies — today provide a quarter of the offshore and nearshore digital services market, according to outsourcing research firm Everest Group. And that percentage is likely to grow as enterprise demand for digital transformation continues.[ Related: Digital transformation will shape 2016 ]“Global in-house centers (GICs) are typically more strongly integrated with the core business as they are perceived as an extended team of the parent or onshore organizations,” says Aditya Verma, co-director of Everest Group’s global sourcing practice. “They typically have specialized knowledge of the business as they cater to only one customer (the parent organization) as compared to a multi-tenant service provider.” Enterprises are typically more comfortable sharing core business knowledge or intellectual property with the company’s own employees than with a third-party service provider who works with other customers or even competitors.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft Intune to support Android for Work

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

Project management: To debrief or not to debrief

Many project managers may view the end of a project as a perfect opportunity to debrief, while others are onto their next project with very little time dedicated to debriefing. Some swear by the debriefing process and others simply bypass it altogether. Let's take a look at the process, its purpose, the benefits and, yes, the drawbacks.The debriefing process is conducted once the project activities have come to a close and the project is complete. It allows for transparent feedback by any/all participants in a non-stressful environment.Reasons for team debriefing sessions The purpose behind project debriefing is to allow the project team an opportunity to share thoughts, experiences and ideas in a more relaxed environment. It offers a means to evaluate whether the project has met all the requirements and stayed within scope. It helps in identifying issues that may have occurred as well as aids in determining possible root causes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A single ransomware network has pulled in $121 million

A single ransomware author and distributor was able to collect $121 million in ransomware payments during the first half of this year, netting $94 million after expenses, according to a report released today."Ransomware has grown over the years, and in 2015 and 2016 we really saw a serious spike," said Vincent Weafer, vice president of Intel Security's McAfee Labs.Weafer estimated that total ransomware revenues could be in the hundreds of millions."And that's on the conservative side," he said.WHAT SHOULD YOU DO: How to respond to ransomware threats Total ransomware increased by 128 percent during the first half of 2016 compared to the same period last year. There were 1.3 million new ransomware samples recorded, the highest number since McAfee began tracking it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tips for keeping Gen-Z and millennial workers happy

Forget everything you think you know about millennials and their successors, Generation Z, because your notions are probably false. What do these generations really want at work? Flexibility, in-person communication, a stable "home base" corporate office and the ability to travel, according to new research from Future Workplace, an HR executive network and research firm, and HR services and staffing company Randstad U.S.A.The research, the Gen Z & Millennials Collide @ Work report, was conducted by Morar Consulting across 10 global markets (U.S., UK, Germany, Mexico, Poland, Argentina, India, China, Canada and South Africa) between June 22 and July 11, 2016, and asked 4,066 respondents in two separate age groups (1,965 Gen Z members; 22 years of age and 2,101 millennials; aged 23 to 34) about their preparation for work, as well as expectations and experiences of their workplaces.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Meet Flock, a Slack rival that claims big productivity gains

Numerous Slack contenders have already thrown their hats into the enterprise-messaging ring, but Flock is hoping to win with hard numbers. According to Flock, not only does its software load 2.5 times faster than Slack on both desktop and mobile, but it also helps teams achieve productivity gains of at least 30 percent.Originally launched in India roughly two years ago, the company announced its expansion into the U.S. market on Wednesday and revealed a customer list that includes big-name brands such as Whirlpool, Ricoh, Victorinox and Tim Horton’s.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

European Union plans to offer free Wi-Fi to all

Free Wi-Fi for all: That was one of the proposals to come out of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker's annual State of the European Union address on Wednesday.The project, WIFI4EU (Wi-Fi for you), aims to put free Wi-Fi hotspots open to all EU citizens in parks, squares, libraries and other public buildings.The Commission will provide €120 million (US$135 million) through 2019 to subsidize the purchase and installation of Wi-Fi hotspots in 6,000 or more locations, but the provision of bandwidth and ongoing maintenance will be left to the local community.The hotspots will be open to all EU citizens -- although given the budget, it's unlikely many of them will be able to get a signal without a long walk.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Want to boost your CIO pay? Switch jobs

The four highest-paid CIOs in our tally all have something in common: a major job transition. Three of the four CIOs started new jobs, and one left his CIO position but stayed on as a consultant. Each of these tech leaders negotiated an extremely lucrative transition. Tim Theriault, who stepped down last June from his position as global CIO for Walgreens Boots Alliance, earned the largest of the 25 CIO pay packages we studied. Theriault received a $13.6 million compensation package that included a giant parting payment of $8.5 million, as per his employment agreement with the $103 billion pharmacy giant. (Walgreens merged with Alliance Boots in December 2014 to become the largest retail pharmacy in the U.S. and Europe; the company has a presence in 23 countries.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

25 CIO pay packages revealed

Deep dive into CIO pay packagesTo find out how much CIOs at giant global companies really earn, we scoured the proxy statements of the 500 largest U.S. companies and found 25 that disclosed CIO pay. Here are the details on their 2015 pay packages, organized from lowest to highest paid.To see all the data in one place, check out our sortable chart of CIO compensation. See the last slide for details about how we compiled the data. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Case study: How LinkedIn uses containers to run its professional network

When LinkedIn started in 2003 it was a simple Java application with a web server.Today the company that calls itself the world’s largest professional network is a powerhouse network that Microsoft earlier this summer spent $26.2 billion to acquire. LinkedIn Steve Ihde “Growing the site has been a journey,” says LinkedIn’s director of engineering Steve Ihde. And recently, application containers have played a big role.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone 7 Review Roundup

If you’re on the fence about whether or not you want to dive in and get Apple’s new iPhone 7, a number of iPhone 7 reviews went live early this morning and should help you make a decision in either direction.By and large, the vast majority of iPhone 7 reviews we’ve come across thus far have been overwhelmingly positive. From endless praise about the camera and overall system-wide performance, it appears that Apple has another blockbuster product on its hands. Notably, most reviewers found the device’s missing 3.5mm headphone jack to be a minor inconvenience at worst and completely a non-issue at best.So to help get you rolling, we’ve compiled a list of some of the more informative iPhone 7 reviews for your reading pleasure. One item to keep an eye on as you read the following reviews and excerpts is how reviewers took to Apple’s new static home button. While some reviewers praised the design, others were less than impressed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Riverbed upgrades set sights on the SD-WAN edge, cloud integration

At Riverbed’s Disrupt event in New York’s upscale Conrad Hotel today, the company announced new products designed to help customers move their enterprise network more fully into the cloud arena.At the heart of the announcements, Version 2.0 of Riverbed’s SteelConnect software-defined WAN product which adds router capabilities to the gateway hardware for the first time, letting users replace legacy routers.Version 2.0 also integrates SteelCentral – the company’s application performance management system - features into the SteelConnect front end, and introduces two new gateway models, which feature up to 10Gbps of throughput capability.SteelConnect, which was initially launched earlier this year, is Riverbed’s ambitious attempt to broaden its presence in the network management arena. In addition to its SD-WAN management capabilities, SteelConnect lets IT departments manage cloud and LAN deployments from the same interface.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft Dynamics 365 won’t come cheap, leaked details suggest

Microsoft's upcoming Dynamics 365 cloud software promises a one-stop shop for ERP and CRM, but its modular convenience could come at a considerable cost, with strong incentives to sign up for bundle pricing.So suggests a blog post published Monday but since taken down by Microsoft partner Encore Business Solutions. The blog post outlined how pricing and licensing will work for the new enterprise software. (A cached version of the post is still online.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to make hybrid cloud work

Last year, hybrid cloud was a priority for many enterprises, although with a certain amount of confusion about what it involved. This year, those ambitious plans are showing up as an approach to hybrid cloud that relies on platform as a service (PaaS) to take full advantage of cloud models.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

New Yorker sues Apple over botched iPhone Upgrade Program pre-order

A New York man yesterday sued Apple in federal court, claiming that the company misled him and others when it pitched the iPhone Upgrade Program last year.The lawsuit asked for class action status, a move that if approved would let others join the case.Emil Frank of Brooklyn, N.Y., complained that he had not been able to pre-order an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus on Friday because Apple limited the number of devices for Upgrade Program participants while letting others reserve new phones."[Apple] allowed non-iPhone Upgrade Program customers to snap up the limited inventory of the new devices while telling countless iPhone Upgrade Program customers to 'check back later,'" Frank asserted.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: iOS 10 adds speed and smarts

Ten versions of iOS have been released since the iPhone's debut in 2007. At the time, the groundbreaking OS, coupled with innovative touchscreen hardware, changed the mobile landscape and altered what people expect from their mobile devices.Now, a decade later, comes a feature-rich iOS 10, delivering subtle refinements to the user interface, new capabilities and important enhancements to oft-used applications. The overall effect is a cohesive OS made more useful by tying together functions in ways that allow you to do more without having to jump between apps.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here