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Avaya, in no-brainer, pulls $1 billion IPO in wake of bankruptcy filing

Avaya Holdings has withdrawn the $1 billion IPO offering it filed more than 5 years ago in the wake of last week's filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy by principal U.S. subsidiary Avaya, Inc. Avaya was taken private in 2007 after being acquired by two private equity firms for $8.2 billion. Enterprise networking and collaboration vendor Avaya said last week that its Chapter 11 filing is part of its transition from a hardware to software and services company. The company, which is looking to shed its $6 billion debt load, last week reported decreased revenue and an operating loss for its fiscal year ended Sept. 30.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Data center managers, it’s time to commit to those New Year’s resolutions

Whether it’s a new exercise program, volunteering for charitable causes or deciding to go gluten-free, studies have shown that nearly half of people who fully commit to New Year’s resolutions were over 10 times more likely to succeed at realizing real change as compared to 4 percent who do not.The concept of New Year’s resolutions dates back to the Babylonians, who at the start of each year made promises to their gods to return borrowed objects and pay their debts. Romans, too, would begin each year by making promises to Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions, for whom the month of January is named.+ Also on Network World: More proof the cloud is winning big + But wait, dear data center manager. You say you don’t have time to do gut-crunchers every morning and balk at the prospect of giving up bread and pasta? To be perfectly clear, I understand but do not condone your lack of commitment. Change is difficult. And besides, some who follow cultural trends claim that dad bods are slowly coming into fashion.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Data center managers, it’s time to commit to those New Year’s resolutions

Whether it’s a new exercise program, volunteering for charitable causes or deciding to go gluten-free, studies have shown that nearly half of people who fully commit to New Year’s resolutions were over 10 times more likely to succeed at realizing real change as compared to 4 percent who do not.The concept of New Year’s resolutions dates back to the Babylonians, who at the start of each year made promises to their gods to return borrowed objects and pay their debts. Romans, too, would begin each year by making promises to Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions, for whom the month of January is named.+ Also on Network World: More proof the cloud is winning big + But wait, dear data center manager. You say you don’t have time to do gut-crunchers every morning and balk at the prospect of giving up bread and pasta? To be perfectly clear, I understand but do not condone your lack of commitment. Change is difficult. And besides, some who follow cultural trends claim that dad bods are slowly coming into fashion.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Many Organizations Still Opt for “Good Enough” Cybersecurity

Late last year, ESG published a research report titled, Through the Eyes of Cyber Security Professionals, in collaboration with the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA).  As part of this report, 437 cybersecurity professionals and ISSA members were asked if they’d experienced a number of types of security incidents.  The research revealed that: 39% of organizations experienced one or several security incidents resulting in the need to reimage one or several endpoints or servers. 27% of organizations experienced one or several incidents of ransomware. 20% of organizations experienced one or several incidents resulting in the disruption of a business application. 19% of organizations experienced one or several incidents resulting in the disruption of a business process. It should be noted that between 23% and 30% of the survey population responded “don’t know” or “prefer not to say” when asked about different types of security incidents so the percentages represented above are likely much higher.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Many organizations still opt for ‘good enough’ cybersecurity

Late last year, ESG published a research report titled, Through the Eyes of Cyber Security Professionals, in collaboration with the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA). As part of this report, 437 cybersecurity professionals and ISSA members were asked if they’d experienced a number of types of security incidents.  The research revealed that: 39% of organizations experienced one or several security incidents resulting in the need to reimage one or several endpoints or servers. 27% of organizations experienced one or several incidents of ransomware. 20% of organizations experienced one or several incidents resulting in the disruption of a business application. 19% of organizations experienced one or several incidents resulting in the disruption of a business process. It should be noted that between 23% and 30% of the survey population responded “don’t know” or “prefer not to say” when asked about different types of security incidents, so the percentages represented above are likely much higher.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Many Organizations Still Opt for “Good Enough” Cybersecurity

Late last year, ESG published a research report titled, Through the Eyes of Cyber Security Professionals, in collaboration with the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA).  As part of this report, 437 cybersecurity professionals and ISSA members were asked if they’d experienced a number of types of security incidents.  The research revealed that: 39% of organizations experienced one or several security incidents resulting in the need to reimage one or several endpoints or servers. 27% of organizations experienced one or several incidents of ransomware. 20% of organizations experienced one or several incidents resulting in the disruption of a business application. 19% of organizations experienced one or several incidents resulting in the disruption of a business process. It should be noted that between 23% and 30% of the survey population responded “don’t know” or “prefer not to say” when asked about different types of security incidents so the percentages represented above are likely much higher.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hugo Barra quits Chinese phone maker Xiaomi to return to Silicon Valley

Hugo Barra is returning to Silicon Valley, just over three years after he left Google to help turn Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi into a global company.During Barra's time in Beijing, Xiaomi has grown far beyond its home market with its strategy of selling stylish Android phones on thin profit margins. In January, it made a splash at the CES trade show in Las Vegas, capping a series of international launches that had taken the company into over 20 countries, including India, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, Mexico and Poland.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: New game, new rules: 3 steps to secure your bank in the digital age

Banks all around the world are re-imagining their businesses to put customer demands front and center. They are undergoing massive digital transformation processes to do so; however, these transformations, coupled with an always-connected, digitally savvy customer and an emerging “hacker industry,” create new and heightened security risks that banks must deal with immediately.This is a new normal for banks, as evidenced by recent attacks such as the SWIFT hack, and maintaining the security of their systems and customer data will require them to follow new rules and regulations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: New game, new rules: 3 steps to secure your bank in the digital age

Banks all around the world are re-imagining their businesses to put customer demands front and center. They are undergoing massive digital transformation processes to do so; however, these transformations, coupled with an always-connected, digitally savvy customer and an emerging “hacker industry,” create new and heightened security risks that banks must deal with immediately.This is a new normal for banks, as evidenced by recent attacks such as the SWIFT hack, and maintaining the security of their systems and customer data will require them to follow new rules and regulations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Tricentis scoops up mega cash to help enterprises test software

Software testing has always been “a thing.” It has always been necessary to test the various aspects of the software solutions that enterprises create before putting them out in the wild.But the thing that has changed is that software is now incredibly more pervasive than it has ever been before. There are orders of magnitude more software solutions than at any time in the past. Add to that the fact that the complexity of software is always increasing, and you have a real challenge from the perspective of testing.So, it should come as no surprise to see an increasing number of tools and solutions that aim to solve the testing issue—from crowd-sourcing platforms that allow the “wisdom of the masses” to help worth an organization’s testing process to platforms that offer to “automate” all or part of the testing process.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

6 EMM predictions for 2017

With an increased focus on wearables, the IoT, machine learning and virtual reality, CIOs will need to ensure their enterprise mobility management (EMM) strategies can scale. Mobile devices aren't going away, and they're only getting more difficult to manage. Whether it's employees or customers, the number of potential hardware and software exchanging corporate data day in and day out can be staggering."If EMM is managing millions of devices today it will manage billions of other assets in the future," says Clare Grant, general manager of Red Hat Mobile.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 new AWS cloud services you never expected

In the beginning, life in the cloud was simple. Type in your credit card number and—voilà—you had root on a machine you didn’t have to unpack, plug in, or bolt into a rack.That has changed drastically. The cloud has grown so complex and multifunctional that it’s hard to jam all the activity into one word, even a word as protean and unstructured as “cloud.” There are still root logins on machines to rent, but there are also services for slicing, dicing, and storing your data. Programmers don’t need to write and install as much as subscribe and configure.[ Download the public cloud megaguide PDF: Amazon, Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Joyent compared. | Stay up on the cloud with InfoWorld’s Cloud Computing Report newsletter. ] Here, Amazon has led the way. That’s not to say there isn’t competition. Microsoft, Google, IBM, Rackspace, and Joyent are all churning out brilliant solutions and clever software packages for the cloud, but no company has done more to create feature-rich bundles of services for the cloud than Amazon. Now Amazon Web Services is zooming ahead with a collection of new products that blow apart the idea of the cloud as a blank Continue reading

Dublin, New York officials cite smart-tech challenges and successes

New technology such as low-cost video motion sensors and low-power, wide-area wireless networks are now driving smart-city pilot projects to reduce energy used by buildings and to cut traffic delays.While the promise of these innovations is great, that doesn't make it any easier to get city bureaucracies, local businesses and citizens on board to adopt the tech."There are a lot of pain points in cities with traffic congestion and housing needs, and also a lot of technology delivering results. The challenge is working with organizations and changing mindsets and building up awareness of what's possible with internet of things technology and low-power, wide-area networks," said Jamie Cudden, smart city program manager with the city of Dublin, Ireland, in an interview.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Want to be a software developer? Time to learn AI and data science

Artificial intelligence is affecting everything from automobiles to health care to home automation and even sports. It's also going to have a measurable impact on software development, with developers becoming more like data scientists, an AI official with Nvidia believes.AI and deep learning will mean changes in how software is written, said Jim McHugh, vice president and general manager for Nvidia's DGX-1 supercomputer, which is used in deep learning and accelerated analytics. The long-standing paradigm of developers spending months simply writing features will change, he explained.[ Jump into Microsoft’s drag-and-drop machine learning studio: Get started with Azure Machine Learning. | The InfoWorld review roundup: AWS, Microsoft, Databricks, Google, HPE, and IBM machine learning in the cloud. ] With the advent of AI, data is incorporated to create the insight for software. "We're using data to train the software to make it more intelligent," said McHugh. Data will drive the software release because the data is going to give the software the ability to interact.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

30 tasty tips for Android Nougat

Mmm...Nougat. What better way to start a new year than with a fresh flavor for your favorite Android phone?Google's latest major Android release may have officially launched last fall, but if you're like most folks, you'll probably be getting your first taste of Nougat -- also known as Android 7 -- in 2017. If you want timely Android updates, Google's own Nexus and Pixel phones are the only way to go -- all other devices depend on third-party manufacturers to prepare and provide rollouts. And as we see time and time again, that tends to result in slow and uncertain progress.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to keep branch offices as secure as corporate HQ

Rickety branchesImage by PexelsYour gleaming corporate headquarters, filled with brand-new computers, may be what's on the front page of the company website, but we all know that in many large organizations, much of the day-to-day work happens in local branch offices, often small, poorly equipped, and understaffed. And of course, many companies and workers are embracing the flexibility offered by the internet to work at home full time. But these satellite worksites can end up causing big headaches for tech pros tasked with keeping company assets secure. We talked to a number of tech pros to find out more about the dangers—and the solutions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to keep branch offices as secure as corporate HQ

Rickety branchesImage by PexelsYour gleaming corporate headquarters, filled with brand-new computers, may be what's on the front page of the company website, but we all know that in many large organizations, much of the day-to-day work happens in local branch offices, often small, poorly equipped, and understaffed. And of course, many companies and workers are embracing the flexibility offered by the internet to work at home full time. But these satellite worksites can end up causing big headaches for tech pros tasked with keeping company assets secure. We talked to a number of tech pros to find out more about the dangers—and the solutions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 tech jobs that will boom (and 2 that will bust) in 2017

(Insider Story)

Watch Live Today – State of The Net 2017 conference in Washington, DC – security, privacy, IoT and more