Microsoft’s collaboration strategy seems messy

The enterprise collaboration market is increasingly crowded with apps and services that target distinct needs for messaging and communication. With its growing suite of apps that target the market from many different angles, Microsoft represents the challenge of modern collaboration.Collaborative work-related activities increased significantly during the last five years, and apps such as Microsoft's Yammer, Skype for Business and the recently launched Teams are quickly becoming a bigger part of the way people work, according to Bryan Goode, Microsoft's general manager of Office 365. As the average age of today's worker trends younger and more employees work remotely, businesses flock to cloud-based collaboration tools, Goode says. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to tweak your benefits package to find and retain talent

In today's competitive war for talent, employers are using substantial benefits packages to give them an edge when recruiting and retaining talent, according a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey report.The report, which surveyed 738 randomly selected HR professionals, showed that 95 percent rated healthcare as one of the three most important benefits to employees; 71 percent say retirement savings and planning are top-rated employee benefits and 50 percent say leave is an important benefit.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: CrateDB: The IoT and machine data-focused database

There’s been a whole bunch of conversation in the database world in recent years around what the best type of database is for modern applications. Over the past couple of years this has mainly centered around the SQL verses NoSQL wars.On the one hand are the traditional SQL-based databases, which all follow a traditional row and column format. These are the databases that have existed since pretty much year dot and have proved themselves to be good all-around tools.+ Also on Network World: IT wants (but struggles) to operationalize big data + With the advent of social media and the need for database approaches that worked well within the unstructured data landscape that these properties work within has led to the rise of the NoSQL databases. These databases don’t follow, or at least don’t only follow, the standard tabular approach towards data. Hence storage and retrieval of data doesn’t follow the rigid row and column, tabular approach.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: How Swift drives innovation on the cloud

One year ago, Swift became available as open source, and the community immediately set out to make the language usable for everything from systems programming to mobile apps to cloud services.Building on that momentum and creativity, the enterprise is now poised to deploy Swift for front-end and back-end development.The cloud is rapidly becoming the platform for innovation, with enterprises building applications that leverage cognitive, the Internet of Things (IoT) and other emerging technologies. But enterprises need a simpler way to develop apps and innovate quickly on the cloud. When we saw the speed, performance and creativity our development team experienced using Swift to build more than 100 MobileFirst for iOS apps, we focused our efforts on fully enabling Swift for server development so enterprises could also take advantage of these benefits.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft adds Skype translation to landline calls

One would think the addition of a feature like this would have Microsoft screaming from the rooftops, but very quietly Microsoft added a new feature to Skype that supports its real-time translation technology in calls to landlines and mobile phones. The new feature was added to its preview build of the Skype Windows Store app late last week. The new version of Skype Preview can now perform real-time spoken-word translations via Skype Translator when calling landlines and mobile phones, and the person on the other end does not need Skype on their phone to receive translations or be translated.Of course, it's not for everyone. To use this new version of Skype Preview, you need to be run the latest build of Windows 10 Insider preview from the fast ring. That tends to be reserved for dedicated testers and developers, since fast ring releases aren't as stable as normal builds and are geared for debugging. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Get on the same page for network asset management

It’s an all-too familiar scene: The start of a new financial quarter signals yet another opportunity for CFOs and CIOs to debate the fate of proposed network equipment purchases, upgrades and support. If these two stakeholders are to come together to maximize the return on every IT dollar spent, it’s crucial they have a clear understanding of the shared IT value equation. For many, this is capex and opex through the lens of deferring or lowering capital expenditures without increasing operational costs.  This approach typically includes a “sweat the assets” strategy for extending the useful life of stable network routers and switches. But first, you need to know exactly what’s deployed and supported under current maintenance contracts. Relying solely on OEMs to provide a full accounting of your network assets is akin to flying blind. Don’t get me wrong: While there’s great value in tools such as Cisco’s Smart Collector for discovering and gathering device-related data from all the Cisco gear in your network, it’s a place to start—not stop. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Get on the same page for network asset management

It’s an all-too familiar scene: The start of a new financial quarter signals yet another opportunity for CFOs and CIOs to debate the fate of proposed network equipment purchases, upgrades and support. If these two stakeholders are to come together to maximize the return on every IT dollar spent, it’s crucial they have a clear understanding of the shared IT value equation. For many, this is capex and opex through the lens of deferring or lowering capital expenditures without increasing operational costs.  This approach typically includes a “sweat the assets” strategy for extending the useful life of stable network routers and switches. But first, you need to know exactly what’s deployed and supported under current maintenance contracts. Relying solely on OEMs to provide a full accounting of your network assets is akin to flying blind. Don’t get me wrong: While there’s great value in tools such as Cisco’s Smart Collector for discovering and gathering device-related data from all the Cisco gear in your network, it’s a place to start—not stop. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Riverbed stabs at Cisco’s heart with next-gen routing

Riverbed, with its highly successful WAN optimization technology, has long competed with Cisco – but in a niche fashion, acknowledges CEO and co-founder Jerry Kennelly. Now, the company is taking its fight to the core of Cisco’s business with new SD-WAN routing technology that could make existing routers obsolete in the world of hybrid clouds and virtual networks.  I want to talk more specifically about how SteelConnect makes hybrid cloud easier?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Riverbed stabs at Cisco’s heart with next-gen routing

Riverbed, with its highly successful WAN optimization technology, has long competed with Cisco – but in a niche fashion, acknowledges CEO and co-founder Jerry Kennelly. Now, the company is taking its fight to the core of Cisco’s business with new SD-WAN routing technology that could make existing routers obsolete in the world of hybrid clouds and virtual networks.  I want to talk more specifically about how SteelConnect makes hybrid cloud easier?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

53% off Apple USB-C to USB Adapter – Deal Alert

This USB 2.0 cable connects your iPhone, iPad, or iPod with Lightning connector to your computer's USB port for syncing and charging, or to the Apple USB Power Adapter for convenient charging from a wall outlet. It's currently discounted 53% on Amazon from Apple, taking its typical list price down to just $9. See the discounted adapter on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

John McAfee asks court to block Intel’s security spin-out

Intel’s plan to spin out its security business under the McAfee name could run into rough weather with security expert John McAfee asking a court in New York to order an injunction on the deal until a dispute over the use of his personal name for another company is resolved.In a court filing on Tuesday, John McAfee and MGT Capital Investments claimed that there is a high likelihood that Intel intends to sell the rights to the use of his full name to the new venture. “Should the sale go forward any judgment awarded to Plaintiffs will be ineffectual,” it added.John McAfee and MGT informed the court that they will be seeking a preliminary injunction that would prevent Intel from “selling, trading, assigning, leasing or otherwise transferring any alleged rights, in whole or in part, relating to any marks, names, trade names, or entities containing the word ‘McAfee’” until the resolution of the dispute.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

John McAfee asks court to block Intel’s security spin-out

Intel’s plan to spin out its security business under the McAfee name could run into rough weather with security expert John McAfee asking a court in New York to order an injunction on the deal until a dispute over the use of his personal name for another company is resolved.In a court filing on Tuesday, John McAfee and MGT Capital Investments claimed that there is a high likelihood that Intel intends to sell the rights to the use of his full name to the new venture. “Should the sale go forward any judgment awarded to Plaintiffs will be ineffectual,” it added.John McAfee and MGT informed the court that they will be seeking a preliminary injunction that would prevent Intel from “selling, trading, assigning, leasing or otherwise transferring any alleged rights, in whole or in part, relating to any marks, names, trade names, or entities containing the word ‘McAfee’” until the resolution of the dispute.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Q&A: Vendor OpenFlow Limitations

I rarely get OpenFlow questions these days; here’s one I got not so long ago:

I've just spent the last 2 days of my life consuming the ONF 1.3.3 white paper in addition to the $vendor SDN guide to try and reconcile what features it does or does not support and have come away disappointed...

You’re not the only one ;)

Read more ...

Arista Gives Tomahawk 25G Ethernet Some XPliant Competition

Processing for server compute has gotten more general purpose for the past two decades and is seeing resurgence in built-for-purpose chips. Network equipment makers have made their own specialized chips as well as buying merchant chips of varying kinds to meet very specific switching and routing needs.

Of the chip upstarts that are competing against industry juggernaut Cisco Systems, Arista Networks stands out as the company that decided from its founding in 2009 to rely only on merchant silicon for switches and to differentiate on speed to market and software functionality and commonality across many different switch ASICs with its …

Arista Gives Tomahawk 25G Ethernet Some XPliant Competition was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Google publishes national security letters for the first time

Google is providing for the first time a look into the world of national security letters -- demands from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to hand over details about account holders and keep quiet about it.The letters are a part of business for Google and other major internet companies, but  traditionally they have been barred from acknowledging the letters' existence. That changed in 2013 when, in light of revelations about Internet surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies, Google and others started fighting to disclose more about the demands.That led to the creation of Google's "transparency report," which revealed the company receives thousands of requests for user data each month from law enforcement agencies around the globe. The national security letters remained secret, but on Tuesday, Google published a handful that are no longer covered by nondisclosure rules.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google publishes national security letters for the first time

Google is providing for the first time a look into the world of national security letters -- demands from the Federal Bureau of Investigation to hand over details about account holders and keep quiet about it.The letters are a part of business for Google and other major internet companies, but  traditionally they have been barred from acknowledging the letters' existence. That changed in 2013 when, in light of revelations about Internet surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies, Google and others started fighting to disclose more about the demands.That led to the creation of Google's "transparency report," which revealed the company receives thousands of requests for user data each month from law enforcement agencies around the globe. The national security letters remained secret, but on Tuesday, Google published a handful that are no longer covered by nondisclosure rules.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The New Tech Economy in Cloud Networking

In the 1950s, the introduction of jet engine technology revolutionized air transport, allowing for the transport of goods and people across oceans far more quickly than with traditional propeller-based aircraft. A new airline industry on a global basis arose from the jet engine revolution. In the early 2000s, Smartphones revolutionized the phone market by introducing...
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