Microsoft seems ready to give up on Windows phones, if not Windows 10 Mobile

The future of Windows phones...might not be phones? Rumors and hopes for a category-defining Surface phone were not satisfied at Microsoft's press event last Wednesday. The company didn’t even mention Windows 10 Mobile. With the collective market share of Windows phones stagnant at about 1 percent, customers and partners have to wonder why anyone should bother investing in Microsoft’s mobile strategy.    In an interview with ZDnet’s Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft executive vice president of Windows and Devices Terry Myerson was asked just that. But instead of committing wholeheartedly to Windows phones—or declaring that product line dead—Myerson tried a different tack: obscurity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

6 big ideas in digital transformation

If you're ready to kick-start your organization's efforts to embrace digital technologies, this editor-curated selection of Computerworld in-depth stories is the place to start. We identified some of our most targeted content on IT-led digital projects, chock-full of fresh ideas for making your organization more digitally competent. You'll read how savvy organizations in industries across the spectrum got serious about using digital technologies to gain a competitive edge, connect better with customers and improve efficiency.What's Inside: Stories from Top Organizations Transformation That's All About the Customer Part business process redesign, part agile development, the new re-engineering is endless — just like customer demands. Smart companies are learning to please customers one at a time, all of the time. Read how the CIO at Valdosta University, for example, turned IT's focus to the school's students, upgrading the campus wireless network, redesigning and repurposing some of its computer labs, and offering after-hours support service staffed by IT.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 ways to make sure your remote workers are being safe

SafeguardsImage by PexelsWith an ever-expanding mobile workforce, infosec teams are increasingly tasked with extending cybersecurity safeguards beyond the physical and virtual walls of their organizations. With endpoints not only increasing but on the move, the challenge is real. In addition to implementing the appropriate technical defenses, there is an important aspect to protecting corporate data and systems: Asking end users to get involved.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 ways to make sure your remote workers are being safe

SafeguardsImage by PexelsWith an ever-expanding mobile workforce, infosec teams are increasingly tasked with extending cybersecurity safeguards beyond the physical and virtual walls of their organizations. With endpoints not only increasing but on the move, the challenge is real. In addition to implementing the appropriate technical defenses, there is an important aspect to protecting corporate data and systems: Asking end users to get involved.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IT Resume Makeover: Highlighting business and technology leadership

Not everyone has a typical career trajectory where titles, skills and promotions all line up into a neat, concise story. That was the case with Keith Evans. He held varying CIO roles with the same company and had skills that set him apart from other CIOs, which caused some confusion and resulted in a dense resume. Laura Smith-Proulx, career and resume expert, knew that the goal with re-writing Evan's resume was to organize the existing information to build a clear picture of his extensive skills and experience as a CIO.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Mainstreaming Machine Learning: Emerging Solutions

In the course of this three-part series on the challenges and opportunities for enterprise machine learning, we have worked to define the landscape and ecosystem for these workloads in large-scale business settings and have taken an in-depth look at some of the roadblocks on the path to more mainstream machine learning applications.

In this final part of the series, we will turn from pointing to the problems and look at the ways the barriers can be removed, both in terms of leveraging the technology ecosystem around machine learning and addressing more difficult problems, most notably, how to implement the human …

Mainstreaming Machine Learning: Emerging Solutions was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

5 ways to reduce bias in your hiring practices

Unconscious and implicit biases are a major barrier to diversity and inclusion efforts in the workplace, and they can have far-reaching implications on the success of individual employees and the company as a whole. The key, says Katherin Nukk-Freeman and Suzanne Cerra, employment law attorneys and co-founders of SHIFT HR Compliance Training, is not to say, "are we unconsciously biased?" but rather, "What can we do about our implicit biases?"Nukk-Freeman and Cerra offer five bias-busting strategies HR teams can implement in their organizations to create a more diverse and inclusive culture.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Unencrypted pagers a security risk for hospitals, power plants

For most of us, pagers went out when cell phones came in, but some companies are still using them and when the messages are sent without encryption, attackers can listen in and even interfere with the communications.According to two new reports by Trend Micro, pagers are still in use in hospital settings and in industrial plants.Stephen Hilt, Trend Micro's lead researcher on the project, said they don’t have a concrete percentage on the number of encrypted messages.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Unencrypted pagers a security risk for hospitals, power plants

For most of us, pagers went out when cell phones came in, but some companies are still using them and when the messages are sent without encryption, attackers can listen in and even interfere with the communications.According to two new reports by Trend Micro, pagers are still in use in hospital settings and in industrial plants.Stephen Hilt, Trend Micro's lead researcher on the project, said they don’t have a concrete percentage on the number of encrypted messages.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How sports execs use tech to improve fan engagement

HALF MOON BAY, CALIF. - If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed much in sports it’s that winning cures a lot of ills. Fans generally don’t want to follow or pay to see a team that’s always losing, but competitive teams with a shot at a championship typically attract more fans and can generate more revenue via merchandise, media and other ancillary deals.But one thing that has changed, sports are not the only game in town. From live performances to outdoor activities and the many choices in big and small screen entertainment, consumers have more options as to how to spend their free time and money than ever before.As a result, professional sports teams are investing in new ways to attract and engage fans both inside and outside the ballpark or stadium and technology is a big part of those investments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Here’s how businesses can prevent point-of-sale attacks

Retailers, hotels and restaurants have all been victimized through the same Achilles' heel that cybercriminals continue to attack: the point-of-sale system, where customers' payment data is routinely processed.  These digital cash registers are often the target of malware designed to steal credit card numbers in the thousands or even millions. This year, fast food vendor Wendy's, clothing retailer Eddie Bauer and Kimpton Hotels have all reported data breaches stemming from such attacks.Security experts, however, are encouraging a variety of approaches to keep businesses secure from point-of-sale-related intrusions. Here are a few to consider:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Here’s how businesses can prevent point-of-sale attacks

Retailers, hotels and restaurants have all been victimized through the same Achilles' heel that cybercriminals continue to attack: the point-of-sale system, where customers' payment data is routinely processed.  These digital cash registers are often the target of malware designed to steal credit card numbers in the thousands or even millions. This year, fast food vendor Wendy's, clothing retailer Eddie Bauer and Kimpton Hotels have all reported data breaches stemming from such attacks.Security experts, however, are encouraging a variety of approaches to keep businesses secure from point-of-sale-related intrusions. Here are a few to consider:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Mirantis cut OpenStack staff

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Mirantis - two of the most instrumental companies in the open source cloud computing project OpenStack - have each laid off employees in recent weeks, according to the companies.The full extent of the layoffs at HPE is unknown but ComputerWorldUK last week quoted Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth as saying that HPE had laid off their “entire OpenStack team.” An official with HPE confirmed there has been a restructuring but would not say how many OpenStack workers were cut, adding that Shuttleworth’s statement is exaggerated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Migrating To A Software-Defined World

BGP Security: Mitigating Route Leaks

Setting Community Values

The oVirt community is made up of a diverse mix of individuals using and contributing to all aspects of the project from all over the world, and we want to make sure that the community is a safe and friendly place for everyone.

This code of conduct applies equally to founders, mentors, and those seeking help and guidance. It applies to all spaces managed by the oVirt project, including IRC, mailing lists, GitHub, Gerrit, oVirt events, and any other forums created by the project team which the community uses for communication.

While we have contribution guidelines for specific tools, we expect all members of our community to follow these general guidelines and be accountable to the community. This isn’t an exhaustive list of things that you can’t do. Rather, take it in the spirit in which it’s intended—a guide to make it easier to enrich all of us and the technical communities in which we participate.

To that end, some members of the oVirt community have put together a new Community Code of Conduct to help guide everyone through what it means to be respectful and tolerant in a global community like the oVirt Project.

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IDG Contributor Network: Is your personal relevance gap growing faster than your waistline?

In a previous series of blogs, I talked about why your network is the critical foundation of the digital transformation and of the business benefits of moving to a new IP network architecture. I talked about how networks help you control time, how the effects of Metcalfe’s and Reed’s Laws result in wealth creation, and why there is such a tension between your dumb pipes and your smart business. But it’s not just the technology that matters in this coming digital transformation; it’s also your skills and ultimately your career.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Is your personal relevance gap growing faster than your waistline?

In a previous series of blogs, I talked about why your network is the critical foundation of the digital transformation and of the business benefits of moving to a new IP network architecture. I talked about how networks help you control time, how the effects of Metcalfe’s and Reed’s Laws result in wealth creation, and why there is such a tension between your dumb pipes and your smart business. But it’s not just the technology that matters in this coming digital transformation; it’s also your skills and ultimately your career.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

First Speakers in the Spring 2017 Data Center Course

It’s only two weeks since the last live session of the Autumn 2016 Data Center course in which Mitja Robas did a fantastic job describing a production deployment of VMware NSX on top of Cisco Nexus 9000 network, and we already have the first speakers for the Spring 2017 event:

• Scott Lowe (now at VMware) will talk about the role of open source in data center infrastructure;
• Thomas Wacker (UBS AG) will talk about their fully automated data center deployments;
• Andrew Lerner and Simon Richard (Gartner) will participate in a panel discussion on data center and networking trends.

IDG Contributor Network: Apcera rolls out its container management platform

Apcera is an interesting company. Its founder, Derek Collison, was one of the key people behind Cloud Foundry back when it was a small platform project within VMware. Since then Cloud Foundry has gone on to become, arguably, the most important platform as a service (PaaS) organization on earth.+ Also on Network World: PaaS vendors draw battle lines over containers + Collison has moved on as well and founded Apcera, a company focused on giving large enterprises the certainty that comes from using a platform with security and policy baked in. In a world were organizations are hearing more and more about containers and cloud-native applications, having a platform that allows them to use these technologies within the context of tight policy is an attractive proposition.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here