But are your devices protected from uninvited guests?

Security vulnerabilities of video conferencing recently inspired a discussion on LinkedIn (PDF), [...]]]> Videoconferencing is quickly becoming a communication standard for many businesses because of its easy, collaborative use. Companies are putting their trust in video calls, even for sensitive business discussions.

But are your devices protected from uninvited guests?

Security vulnerabilities of video conferencing recently inspired a discussion on LinkedIn (PDF), revealing that the security of these devices may need to be readdressed by the businesses that use them. IT Security professionals in the discussion said that many Cisco and Polycom devices were getting attacked and compromised largely because suppliers weren’t providing even basic security for their devices, such as firewalls. These devices were simply left open to the internet, primed for a hacker attack.

So what can you do about this?

To begin with, make sure that whoever is actually implementing and advising on the system understands exactly what needs to be done to secure your connections (and your business!). According to Pat Montani, leader of the discussion, a whole industry is flourishing as a result of the shortfalls in videoconferencing security.  He doesn’t mince his words: “When will the video conferencing industry learn about security, my guess is never.”

Is this just scaremongering?  Maybe. But customers that invest in video conferencing services and all the devices that go with it need to know how to keep those same devices safe, experts say, especially as  video conferencing is increasingly pervasive throughout the workplace and beyond. Working with a specialist videoconference managed service firm that have demonstrable experience in understanding the security intricacies should be your first port of call.

Don’t rely on device manufacturers alone

One expert noted that video managed service providers who don’t understand the importance of video security will soon be displaced. He also said that customers should know a few things or two about security as well so they aren’t blind-sided by security threats.

Keeping your business communications secure should be paramount for all of us – and they can be -just ensure you wise up and don’t let yourself be caught in the headlights when the CEO comes looking for a sacrificial lamb after a board level video conference was hacked.

Image courtesy of Miria Grunick

Business analysts pointed to research documenting the benefits of working remotely. Parents waxed [...]]]>

Room with a Productive View

Public reaction to Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision to ban telecommuting can largely be summed up by the title of Slate magazine writer Farhad Manjoo’s  article: “Marissa Mayer Has Made a Terrible Mistake.”

Business analysts pointed to research documenting the benefits of working remotely. Parents waxed indignant over her decision to ban telecommuting while building (at her own expense) an onsite nursery for her new baby. While some Mayer defenders claim the controversy was fuelled by sexism, the more likely reason seems to be, as blogger Dana Theus suggests, that “the broader market associates Silicon Valley with innovative employee policies. Observers see the Yahoo move as out of step with what a cutting-edge tech company would do.”

AllThingsD’s Kara Swish reported that, in fact, Mayer’s decision was driven by technology. When Mayer checked VPN logs to see how often workers were logging onto the network, the answer was: not often enough. Even Mayer defender G.A. Marken admits that this is more of a management—and personal ethics—problem than an indictment of remote working.

The reason Mayer herself cited in the now-infamous memo was that “to become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side.” The assumption inherent in this reasoning—that communication and collaboration require physical co-location—is contradicted by a recent Trackvia survey of knowledge workers that found 43 percent of respondents felt electronic communication improved workplace relationships.

White Paper:  Extending the Business Value of Videoconferencing with Microsoft Lync 2013

Trackvia’s results may reflect the rapid evolution of electronic communication. Research firm comScore reports that the UK online video audience grew 8 percent in the past year, whilst mobile video audience grew 262 percent. Widespread adoption of smartphones and tablets as well as cloud-based services like Skype has made consumers more comfortable with using technology to build and maintain relationships.

An MIT study of 80 software development projects found that virtual teams can actually outperform co-located groups. This finding is validated by another recent study conducted at a Chinese travel agency by Stanford University, which found remote workers outperformed peers in the office. They worked more hours and spent their time working more productively. Retention rates were also higher among remote workers—perhaps because managers are empowered to make hiring decisions from a much larger pool of qualified candidates.

Benefits like these help explain rising rates of remote workers. A CBI study showed the number of employers offering remote working to employees has risen from 13 percent to 59 percent. Companies have also found that virtual workers save money (by reducing physical office size requirements) and boost brand association with “green” policies by reducing carbon footprint.

Companies like Yahoo are bucking an overall trend with the decision to restrict rather than expand workplace flexibility. Increasing employee satisfaction and productivity whilst saving money makes remote working a smart investment for businesses.

Image courtesy of Jessaymn

In total, 2,053 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) from 41 countries were surveyed, and most revealed that the amount that their organisations were investing in [...]]]> A recent study by Gartner, entitled ‘Hunting and Harvesting in a Digital World: The 2013 CIO Agenda’ offers a startling insight into the reluctance of businesses to invest in new technology.

In total, 2,053 Chief Information Officers (CIOs) from 41 countries were surveyed, and most revealed that the amount that their organisations were investing in IT, although totalling some $230 billion, has been steadily decreasing over the past few years. In addition, most reported no plans to increase investment in this area in the near future.

In a week when HMV looks to be on the verge of collapse, according to many as a result of its own failure to adopt new technology, we look at some of the trends that retailers simply cannot afford to ignore if they are to remain competitive this year.

Multi channel

The high street recently announced its Christmas trading figures and it’s no surprise that among the winners are those with a strong physical and virtual presence. In this age of multi-channel retailing, consumers want the convenience of being able to browse online, with the ability to physically collect an item the same day.

Once-ailing Argos have reported buoyant trading figures, in no small part due to their successful ‘click and collect’ service, which has been emulated by several other retailers. Commenting in Retail Week , Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King observed that: “Click-and-collect is bigger than it’s ever been. Online is a growing channel but the ability of customers to be able to mix and match between online and physical stores remains key.”

If you are a bricks and clicks retailer, making sure that your online and offline inventory are updated in real time is going to be essential in 2013.

Whitepaper: Dynamic Video Collaboration: Developing the Business Case

Mobile devices

Shop Direct Group, one of the UK’s largest retailers, have invested heavily in mobile websites, and this has paid dividends over the Christmas period. The Telegraph reports that the group, which trades under brand names such as Littlewoods and Very , saw the amount of transactions from mobile sites increase by over 100% on last year, accounting for more than 28% of total spend.

One of the very first things that needs to be on every retailer’s agenda this year is ensuring that their website is mobile and tablet accessible.

Streaming

Both HMV and Blockbuster have been left behind by the digital age. Both have been punished by their failure to adapt to new technology and the resultant change in the habits of consumers. In both cases, the advent of streaming media via an increasing array of devices has made their products redundant.

The fact that Tesco has entered into this space recently with its Blinkbox service speaks volumes about the level of demand for streaming.

Big data

Big data is one of the biggest buzzwords being bandied about at the moment, but Gartner’s report highlighted a serious lack of time and resources being devoted to it.

Thanks to software such as Google Analytics, retailers have never had so much information about their customers to play with. However, ensuring that this data is effectively gathered, and more importantly, actioned is one of the biggest challenges that retailers will face. Successful businesses will need to invest in both the technology and resources to handle data this year.

Image courtesy of IT Stategists

Recent reports suggest they’re [...]]]> Video conferencing is everywhere you look these days and plenty of businesses use solutions such as Skype, Google Hangouts, FaceTime and WebEx. But are these really up to the job of providing a decent solution for enterprises, especially larger organisations who may want to hook up with offices around the globe?

Recent reports suggest they’re not; Skype has recently been attacked by malware and seems to be becoming a more popular target, not good for ‘closed’ meetings and perfect for industrial espionage.

We reported recently that enterprise–grade video conferencing solutions have taken something of a hit recently, with leaders Cisco reporting a drop in revenue. However, this seems to be something of an overall tightening of budgets, rather than a lack of interest from enterprises.

White Paper:  Dynamic Video Collaboration:  Developing the Business Case

Consumer video conferencing solutions like those described above can be useful for the SMB, but for larger enterprises, just using these can affect the credibility of your organisation. Trying to use Skype as a means to conference around the globe simply isn’t good enough as there are often quality problems and it’s really not an enterprise-grade solution.

Whilst Adobe Connect and WebEx were the precursor to the rise in video conferencing, they are “more about active speakers and passive participants and less about interactive/collaborative communications,” according to Robin Raulf-Sager of RadVision Blogs.

Today’s video conferencing needs more; HD quality, collaboration and the ability to have more than one active participant. There’s no doubt that VC can have a seriously positive effect on an enterprise and this is what is slowly driving adoption.

However, as was first the case with cloud, adoption is slow for enterprise class solutions such as provided by Cisco and Polycom; for a start, investment is needed and secondly those old security issues of ‘free tools’ seem to be rearing their head again. This is the reason that enterprise VC solutions are not free to use.

In order to create a customised solution that integrates video, security, collaboration, reliability, scalability and so forth, enterprises have to get to grips with integration of video conferencing and how much it can mean to its business.

The way the world of business is changing, professional video conferencing solutions offer significant ROI simply because it simplifies the processes of workflows and allows collaboration in a way not offered before.

Image courtesy of  Stockfreeimages

Analysts make predictions which can be slightly biased towards whoever has commissioned the work and other online information has [...]]]> A new study by Gartner puts forward the idea that Europe will continue to trail the US in terms of cloud adoption and infrastructure by two years for the foreseeable future. However, is this necessarily true?

Analysts make predictions which can be slightly biased towards whoever has commissioned the work and other online information has proved to be contradictory to the research.

Gartner say that European adoption is due in part to the Eurozone crisis and ongoing recession as well as different laws that govern cloud in various European countries.

“The opportunities for cloud computing value are valid all over the world, and the same is true for some of the risks and costs,” said Paolo Malinverno, vice president at Gartner.

“However, some of cloud computing’s potential risks and costs — namely security, transparency and integration — which are generally applicable worldwide, take on a different meaning in Europe.”

Microsoft gives more positive results

Whilst the adoption of cloud has been slow to take off in recent years, this is something that is changing rapidly in Europe as SMBs begin to realise the benefits of SaaS. Whilst recent research by Microsoft doesn’t exactly disagree with Gartner’s findings, it’s much more positive in that it states the adoption of cloud computing in Europe will create 1.2m jobs in Europe alone, suggesting that the outlook isn’t quite as grim as Gartner would have us believe.

Gartner believe one of the biggest contributions to Europe trailing in cloud when compared to the US is due to a number of factors; one of which is data privacy regulations, which are, at least in the UK, changeable and complex, dependent on the industry which is looking to take on cloud.

This, they believe, is hampering entry into cloud as many companies are uncomfortable with using services within the US as their laws surrounding data protection and compliance differ to Euro laws. Further to this, the study speculates that the time necessary to go through the process according to EU regulations makes adoption a timely and costly project which it doesn’t necessarily have to be.

Eurozone crisis

Of course, the Eurozone crisis is also blamed for the slow adoption of cloud when compared to the US as many corporations can’t afford any radical changes to infrastructure, whether that be IaaS or hybrid solutions.

However, the Microsoft study, carried out on their behalf by analysts IDC suggests otherwise, with Germany and Poland being the top countries who are looking to take on new staff for cloud related jobs. Spain also appear to be investing in cloud technologies in order to create new jobs and invest in innovative projects to promote growth.

These somewhat conflicting reports make for confusion when it comes to how far behind the US Europe is and suggests a number of misconceptions when it comes to how the technology is performing in Europe.

Whilst the Gartner study argues that EU companies are wary of using US-based data centres, this isn’t surprising despite the analysts assertion that Euro companies are confused by US laws such as the Patriot Act, which allows US officials to access data for national security reasons.

Doyenz disaster

The recent demise of the UK arm of Doyenz and their disaster recovery service rCloud won’t have helped Europeans gain any trust with the US. Whilst the US-based company have reportedly said that customers may be able to move the data to another server in the US, the fact remains that the company gave clients little more than a week’s notice of their intention to remove the service, and only another couple of weeks to retrieve any data stored at their data centre.

Bearing this in mind, it’s not completely surprising that Euro companies are wary of using US services.

However, does this really mean that the EU will continue to trail in cloud technologies? Most of the EU has a 3-year plan to deal with both superfast broadband roll-out and the adoption of cloud technologies and the latter is something that has seen a steady increase in 2012.

According to Microsoft: “IDC’s research predicts revenues from cloud innovation could reach $1.1 trillion per year by 2015, which, combined with cloud efficiencies, will drive significant organizational reinvestment and job growth.”

This would suggest that the Gartner study concentrates mainly on the adoption of European companies of US-based cloud services, rather than internal data centres in Europe itself.

Microsoft infographic

The infographic below, illustrates the growth in cloud in Europe, Africa and the Middle East and would appear to contradict what Gartner say, unless of course they are discounting growth and concentrating on how the rest of the world does business with their cloud-based services.