Worth Reading: What Cisco reveals about the enterprise market

Cisco is now sitting on a staggering $71.85 billion in cash, a lot of it overseas and inaccessible for doing acquisitions or anything until it is repatriated to the United States, where it is headquartered. Cisco could borrow money to build its appliances, offsetting its cash hoard without actually drawing it down and incurring taxes, and then simply offer every switch, router, and server with a monthly rental price. It would have to wait three to four years until most of the base converts from purchases to rentals. If Cisco set the rental rate fairly, then it could get off the product sales mouse wheel completely, and if Cisco made more malleable switches, with a mix of FPGAs and maybe ASICs like Cavium’s XPliant or Barefoot Networks’ Tofino chips, it could extend the life of these rented machines quite far and not incur hardware upgrade cycle costs like it is now. —The Next Platform

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IDG Contributor Network: Reaching the cybersecurity tipping point

Remember that moment when you really committed yourself to solid security and privacy practices? The moment when you committed to never clicking on a link you weren’t sure about, to always checking for badges on people coming in the door, to always using your password manager to create a complex password? If you do, you reached your “cybersecurity tipping point.”For many, that moment has not yet come. And if you are reading this article, it might be your job to get your employees to hit that point. And you already know that the hard part is figuring out how.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Reaching the cybersecurity tipping point

Remember that moment when you really committed yourself to solid security and privacy practices? The moment when you committed to never clicking on a link you weren’t sure about, to always checking for badges on people coming in the door, to always using your password manager to create a complex password? If you do, you reached your “cybersecurity tipping point.”For many, that moment has not yet come. And if you are reading this article, it might be your job to get your employees to hit that point. And you already know that the hard part is figuring out how.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What to expect from the Trump administration on cybersecurity

Look for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to push for increased cybersecurity spending in government, but also for increased digital surveillance and encryption workarounds.That's the view of some cybersecurity policy experts, who said they expect Trump to focus on improving U.S. agencies' cybersecurity while shying away from new cybersecurity regulations for businesses. Trump is likely to look for ways for the National Security Agency and other agencies to assist the government and companies defend against cyberattacks, said Jeffrey Eisenach, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a tech advisor during Trump's presidential transition.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What to expect from the Trump administration on cybersecurity

Look for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to push for increased cybersecurity spending in government, but also for increased digital surveillance and encryption workarounds.That's the view of some cybersecurity policy experts, who said they expect Trump to focus on improving U.S. agencies' cybersecurity while shying away from new cybersecurity regulations for businesses. Trump is likely to look for ways for the National Security Agency and other agencies to assist the government and companies defend against cyberattacks, said Jeffrey Eisenach, a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a tech advisor during Trump's presidential transition.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

OpenStack Says Private Clouds Save Big $$$ Versus Public Clouds

The group today issued its 15th OpenStack release - Ocata.

New macOS ransomware spotted in the wild

A new file-encrypting ransomware program for macOS is being distributed through bittorrent websites and users who fall victim to it won't be able to recover their files, even if they pay.Crypto ransomware programs for macOS are rare. This is the second such threat found in the wild so far, and it's a poorly designed one. The program was named OSX/Filecoder.E by the malware researchers from antivirus vendor ESET who found it.OSX/Filecoder.E masquerades as a cracking tool for commercial software like Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Microsoft Office for Mac and is being distributed as a bittorrent download. It is written in Apple's Swift programming language by what appears to be an inexperienced developer, judging from the many mistakes made in its implementation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New macOS ransomware spotted in the wild

A new file-encrypting ransomware program for macOS is being distributed through bittorrent websites and users who fall victim to it won't be able to recover their files, even if they pay.Crypto ransomware programs for macOS are rare. This is the second such threat found in the wild so far, and it's a poorly designed one. The program was named OSX/Filecoder.E by the malware researchers from antivirus vendor ESET who found it.OSX/Filecoder.E masquerades as a cracking tool for commercial software like Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Microsoft Office for Mac and is being distributed as a bittorrent download. It is written in Apple's Swift programming language by what appears to be an inexperienced developer, judging from the many mistakes made in its implementation.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hybrid ERP matures as companies develop better strategies

It’s hard to find a company that does not have some form of a hybrid (cloud and on-premise) ERP system. For most, that happened by accident. Someone in the organization bypassed IT and bought a cloud service to fill a need more quickly than they could with an on-premise solution. Salesforce.com, for example, has often been the start of a company’s march to a hybrid environment.Cloud applications can be relatively easy, low-cost solutions, but they do introduce new complexities when they need to be integrated with on-premise ERP systems and databases, or with each other. Ensuring that cloud and on-premise systems play nice together is just one part of the hybrid challenge. Making the right decisions about what will be in the cloud and what stays in-house is the other.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hybrid ERP matures as companies develop better strategies

It’s hard to find a company that does not have some form of a hybrid (cloud and on-premise) ERP system. For most, that happened by accident. Someone in the organization bypassed IT and bought a cloud service to fill a need more quickly than they could with an on-premise solution. Salesforce.com, for example, has often been the start of a company’s march to a hybrid environment.Cloud applications can be relatively easy, low-cost solutions, but they do introduce new complexities when they need to be integrated with on-premise ERP systems and databases, or with each other. Ensuring that cloud and on-premise systems play nice together is just one part of the hybrid challenge. Making the right decisions about what will be in the cloud and what stays in-house is the other.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How the DOT discovered its network was compromised by shadow IT

When Richard McKinney set out to migrate the Department of Transportation (DOT) to Microsoft Office 365, he got a valuable lesson in shadow IT, one that could serve as a cautionary tale for other government leaders as they look to upgrade and consolidate their systems.McKinney, who only recently stepped down as CIO at DOT, had been leading a turnaround mission at the department since his arrival, but when it came time for the Office 365 rollout, he quickly discovered how chaotic the situation was, with hundreds of unauthorized devices running undetected on the sprawling network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How the DOT discovered its network was compromised by shadow IT

When Richard McKinney set out to migrate the Department of Transportation (DOT) to Microsoft Office 365, he got a valuable lesson in shadow IT, one that could serve as a cautionary tale for other government leaders as they look to upgrade and consolidate their systems.McKinney, who only recently stepped down as CIO at DOT, had been leading a turnaround mission at the department since his arrival, but when it came time for the Office 365 rollout, he quickly discovered how chaotic the situation was, with hundreds of unauthorized devices running undetected on the sprawling network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How the DOT discovered its network was compromised by shadow IT

When Richard McKinney set out to migrate the Department of Transportation (DOT) to Microsoft Office 365, he got a valuable lesson in shadow IT, one that could serve as a cautionary tale for other government leaders as they look to upgrade and consolidate their systems.McKinney, who only recently stepped down as CIO at DOT, had been leading a turnaround mission at the department since his arrival, but when it came time for the Office 365 rollout, he quickly discovered how chaotic the situation was, with hundreds of unauthorized devices running undetected on the sprawling network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Diamanti Raises $18M to Push Container Appliances

Container networking and storage get a new twist.

AT&T, Nokia Deliver DirecTV Now in 5G Trial in New Jersey

The trial paves the way for future 5G standards.

How to create IT innovation

Sixty-four percent of IT leaders say their departments are taking the steps necessary to drive innovation in their business. Are you one of them?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Virtual assistants move into DevOps

Companies embracing DevOps practices are turning to chat-based and voice-guided virtual assistants to monitor applications, provision virtual machines and perform other operations. Such tools are instrumental in keeping developers and IT operations staff on the same page as they prioritize speedier software deployment in the digital era."The problems you run into in DevOps is teams are distributed," says Milan Hanson, a Forrester Research analyst who focuses on infrastructure and operations. "You can have the bot automate activities, address it in the chat like it's another person, and it will perform what you've asked it to do and bring the result back into the chat channel where everyone can see it. In a crisis, when people put together a war room or a SWAT team, being able to do that virtually through a chat is a huge advantage."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A trove of new Android smartphones to debut at MWC

Several new high-profile Android smartphones are expected to launch this weekend in advance of Mobile World Congress, which opens Monday in Barcelona.Analysts and published reports have said these new Android smartphones will include: the BlackBerry DTEK70 (through a license with TCL); the LG G6; Moto G5 (the Motorola brand is owned by Lenovo); Nokia 8/P1 ( HMD holds the Nokia brand); Sony Xperia X2; the Huawei P10; and at least one model from HTC.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AMD’s Ryzen launches March 2, outperforming Intel’s Core i7 at a fraction of the price

Ryzen is here. AMD said Wednesday that it plans a “hard launch” of its first three Ryzen processors on March 2, outperforming Intel’s high-end chips while undercutting its prices by as much as 54 percent. AMD executives confidently unveiled the first three desktop chips to attack Intel’s Core i7, supported by several top-tier motherboard vendors and boutique system builders. In many cases, executives said, AMD will offer more for less. The top-tier Ryzen 7 1800X will cost less than half of what Intel’s thousand-dollar Core i7-6900K chip does—and outperform it, too. You can preorder Ryzen chips and systems from 180 retailers and system integrators today.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AMD’s Ryzen launches March 2, outperforming Intel’s Core i7 at a fraction of the price

Ryzen is here. AMD said Wednesday that it plans a “hard launch” of its first three Ryzen processors on March 2, outperforming Intel’s high-end chips while undercutting its prices by as much as 54 percent. AMD executives confidently unveiled the first three desktop chips to attack Intel’s Core i7, supported by several top-tier motherboard vendors and boutique system builders. In many cases, executives said, AMD will offer more for less. The top-tier Ryzen 7 1800X will cost less than half of what Intel’s thousand-dollar Core i7-6900K chip does—and outperform it, too. You can preorder Ryzen chips and systems from 180 retailers and system integrators today.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here