IT Executive news

• Forensic software gets around iCloud security features

  17-12-2014 23:15
  
  A Russian software company has updated its forensic software to work-around the security features Apple recently added to iCloud and increased what information can be extracted from the cloud storage service.Elcomsoft’s Phone Breaker software now supports the two-factor authentication process Apple added to iOS 8 in September for accessing iCloud, Vladimir Katalov, CEO of the Moscow company, said Wednesday in a blog post.The catch to using the software, which pulls files including photos, c
  
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• Uber envisions a safer ride in 2015

  17-12-2014 23:00
  
  Uber, in 2015, is resolving to make its car hailing service safer, partly by enhancing its driver screening through the use of biometrics and voice verification.“As we look to 2015, we will build new safety programs and intensify others,” said Philip Cardenas, Uber’s head of global safety, in a blog post published Wednesday.The new efforts include increasing the number of cities and countries where background checks are conducted, and improving communications with local officials and la
  
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• IBM Pushes Hard into the Enterprise Cloud

  17-12-2014 22:59
  
  IBM is building out its global computing network in a bid to focus on the enterprise cloud market.
  The company announced today that it is adding cloud centers in 11 new locations.
  In a $1.2 billion investment, IBM has built cloud centers in Frankfurt, Mexico City and Tokyo. The other eight new locations come to IBM through a partnership with Equinix Inc., which operates data centers across the globe.
  The partnership will give IBM access to data centers in Australia, France, Japan, Singapore,
  
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• Obama pushes for net neutrality, opposes data localization in trade pact

  17-12-2014 22:35
  
  President Barack Obama’s administration is pushing two potentially controversial Internet policies in a secretive trade pact, with trade negotiators calling for other countries to adopt net neutrality provisions while rejecting policies requiring local storage of data in a secretive 50-country trade pact now being negotiated.A leaked U.S. proposal from April would prohibit countries signing on to the Trade in Services Agreement [TISA] to reject policies requiring that data held by Internet
  
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• The Party's Over for Microsoft CEO Nadella

  17-12-2014 22:07
  
  Well, that honeymoon didn't last long.
  The approval rating of Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella, once in the stratosphere, dropped by 20 percentage points this year before recovering slightly last month, according to data provided by Glassdoor, a Sausalito, Calif.-based online jobs and careers website.
  Glassdoor regularly measures hundreds of CEOs by asking employees posting on the site whether they approve of their chief executive, much like U.S. pollsters quiz voters on the President's perform
  
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• Microsoft and IBM Keep the Pressure on Amazon’s Cloud

  17-12-2014 22:00
  
  Until further notice, Amazon Web Services is the reigning public IaaS cloud leader. But deep-pocketed companies Microsoft and IBM are keeping the pressure on AWS with a flurry of announcements beefing up their clouds to close out the year.
  IBM, which earlier this year committed to investing $1.2 billion in its cloud platform, is accelerating its roll-out of new data centers across the globe. Initially the company said it planned to open 40 cloud sites, but this week it announced that 48 are
  
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• Why Microsoft’s Mobile Marketing Strategy Hinges on iOS and Android

  17-12-2014 21:57
  
  As part of its new platforms and productivity strategy, Microsoft is bringing services and applications to platforms like OS X, iOS and Android -- sometimes before they come to Windows devices. Windows loyalists claim chasing users at the expense of Microsoft's own platform gives them little incentive to stick by. But, in fact, Microsoft is using what it does on other platforms to advertise Windows and Windows Phone.The “death of the PC” may have been exaggerated, but it no longer rules t
  
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• Cloud Provider Pits 6TB Hard Drives in Real-World Face Off

  17-12-2014 21:51
  
  Cloud service provider Backblaze has published performance and reliability data on two of the industry's leading 6TB 3.5-in. hard drives from Seagate and Western Digital (WD).
  The result? Seagate's Barracuda 6TB desktop hard drive (model STBD6000100) was outperformed by WD's Red SATA NAS drives (model WD60EFRX). Seagate's drive also uses a little more electricity. Seagate
  
  Seagate's 6TB desktop HDDTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Forget 2015: Bing Already Knows Which People, Products and Trends Will Win Next Year

  17-12-2014 21:20
  
  Denim tuxedos and turtlenecks, the New England Patriots, Boyhood and Iggy Azalea. What do they all have in common? Microsoft's Bing predicts they'll win their respective categories in 2015.
  Fresh off of a 2014 where Microsoft's Bing predictive search technology picked (and pretty much nailed) the winners of the World Cup, the company has gone big for 2015. On Wednesday, Microsoft predicted the Grammy winners, which movies will win the Golden Globes, food and fashion trends, and which team w
  
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• Chinese Android Phone Maker Hides Secret Backdoor on its Devices

  17-12-2014 20:29
  
  Chinese smartphone maker Coolpad has built an extensive "backdoor" into its Android devices that can track users, serve them unwanted advertisements and install unauthorized apps, a U.S. security firm alleged today.
  In a research paper released today, Palo Alto Networks detailed its investigation of the backdoor, which it dubbed "CoolReaper."
  "Coolpad has built a backdoor that goes beyond the usual data collection," said Ryan Olson, director of intelligence at Palo Alto's Unit 42. "This is w
  
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• An In-Depth Look at the BlackBerry Classic

  17-12-2014 19:43
  
  The BlackBerry ClassicImage by Brian SaccoBlackBerry launched its latest smartphone, the BlackBerry Classic, on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2014, in New York City.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• IBM detects skin cancer more quickly with visual machine learning

  17-12-2014 19:25
  
  Skin cancer can be detected more quickly and accurately by using cognitive computing-based visual analytics, researchers at IBM Research have found, in collaboration with New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.In a scan of 3,000 images, IBM technology was able to spot melanoma with an accuracy of about 95 percent, much better than the 75 percent to 84 percent average of today’s largely manual methods.“The technology can pull on massive amounts of data to help the doctor make
  
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• The Onion’s 10 greatest gags about Google

  17-12-2014 19:11
  
  Targeting Google“America’s Finest News Source,” better known as The Onion, has been poking fun at Google for more than a decade. Here are 10 of what we believe are its better efforts.Teacher Just Hopes They Never Google HimPublished: Aug 22, 2012To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• ICANN data compromised in spearphishing attack

  17-12-2014 19:00
  
  A so-called spearphishing attack on ICANN has compromised the email credentials of several ICANN staff members and allowed the attacker access to user information, including email and postal addresses.The targeted phishing attack also allowed the attacker to gain access to all files in ICANN’s Centralized Zone Data System (CZDS), a centralized point for interested people to request access to so-called zone files provided by participating top level domains. ICANN gave notice of the breach Tu
  
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• US agency sues Sprint for alleged unauthorized charges

  17-12-2014 18:50
  
  The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has filed a lawsuit accusing Sprint of illegally billing mobile customers for tens of millions[m] of dollars in unauthorized third-party charges.Sprint operated a billing system that allowed third parties to cram unauthorized charges on customers’ mobile bills and ignored complaints about the charges, the CFPB alleged in its complaint.The complaint from the CFPB, an agency established by Congress in 2010 to protect customers of the U.S. financia
  
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• The Power of Metaphor

  17-12-2014 18:36
  
  Never underestimate the power of a good metaphor.When two parties come from different backgrounds, they can struggle to share an understanding of something complex and abstract, like technology. CIOs, who bear the burden of educating a wide array of stakeholders on the cost, function, and business impact of technology, need to find a way to elucidate IT in a way that does not overwhelm, intimidate or heaven forfend, bore, their audience.“As CIOs, we need to demystify IT,” says Malini Bal
  
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• New Ransomware Avoids Hitting the Same Victim Twice

  17-12-2014 18:29
  
  A new strain of ransomware, OphionLocker, generates a unique hardware identifier for each new infected machine so that it can avoid hitting the same victim twice, according to new research from KnowBe4, a Florida-based security awareness training firm.
  "This we have not seen before," said KnowBe4 CEO Stu Sjouwerman, who suggested that the crooks have a brand reputation to maintain.
  If the ransomware attacked the same machine twice, re-encrypting already encrypted files, they might not be abl
  
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• Top Malware Families Turn Point-of-Sale Into Point-of-Theft

  17-12-2014 18:11
  
  A wide range of choices for consumers is one of the things that make the American economy vibrant.
  Unfortunately, a wide range of choices also exists in the world of cybercrime, where developers of malware focused on point-of-sale (POS) systems have created dozens of ways to steal payment card information from those same consumers.
  Thanks to the catastrophic breach of retailer Target at this time last year, it is now widely known that the current – although now outgoing – payment card s
  
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• COO Manages Strategic Initiatives, Costs and Tech - CIO Insight

  17-12-2014 17:26
  CIO Insight
  COO Manages Strategic Initiatives, Costs and Tech
  CIO Insight
  How did your time as an IT executive prime you for your current role? Perkins: I've always viewed IT as critical to the business of insurance. There is rarely anything of significance that happens in an insurance company—or any company really—that ...
  
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• Top five smartphone disappointments of the year

  17-12-2014 17:10
  
  The poor design of two different smartphones, a low-resolution front camera with the new iPhone, the Moto G’s lack of LTE, and the hefty price tag of the Amazon Fire led to disappointment this year when it came to smartphone releases.The design of the Samsung Galaxy S5I almost feel sorry for Samsung Electronics and the year the company has had. For example, while the overall smartphone market grew during the third quarter, Samsung’s sales dropped by about 9 percent to 73.2 million units,
  
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• 7 Amazon Redshift Success Stories

  17-12-2014 17:03
  
  Amazon Redshift Image by ShutterstockAmazon Redshift is a fully hosted, petabyte-scale data warehouse service available as part of the Amazon Web Services platform. It was available in beta in November 2012, with a full release in February 2015. Unlike the Amazon RDS hosted database offering, which is a distributed relational database, Redshift is a column-oriented DBMS able to handle large-scale datasets using massive parallel processing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, pleas
  
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• BrandPost: Is Your Brain Trying To Sabotage Your CIO Career?

  17-12-2014 17:02
  
  CIOs are the latest up-and-coming leaders in the C-suite. The modern CIO knows that being able to communicate the business benefits of IT is a key skill.Of course, any leadership role is challenging, but there's a particular reason why most CIOs have it harder than their C-suite colleagues. Quite simply: Your brain is in the way.Know Your Own Brain (And Those Of Others)
  New, improved imaging techniques—more accurate, higher resolution—have allowed neroscientists to learn more about the
  
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• Microsoft’s $84 Million Man: What’s Nadella Done to Earn it?

  17-12-2014 16:56
  
  What could Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella have done in just 10 months to convince shareholders he’s worth the $84 million pay package they approved earlier this month?
  Quite a bit, it turns out, but it remains to be seen how his actions will pan out for the company over time, and in fact that long view was taken into account in his compensation bundle. It doesn’t allow some hefty stock grants to vest fully until 2021, and how much he ultimately gets is linked to how well Microsoft fares ove
  
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• Innovation and Tech Superiority through Acquisition Reform - FederalNewsRadio.com

  17-12-2014 16:54
  Innovation and Tech Superiority through Acquisition Reform
  FederalNewsRadio.com
  Prior to assuming the role of Chief Information Officer of the ITA, Mr. Paiva was a successful entrepreneur and IT executive. Additionally, Joe continues to serve as an officer in the US Army Reserve. Within the International Trade Administration, Mr ...
  
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• Revamping the cloud for real-time applications - Network World

  17-12-2014 16:08
  
  Revamping the cloud for real-time applications
  Network World
  It's hard to have any kind of conversation with any business or IT executive without the cloud coming up. Drive down 101 between San Francisco and San Jose and there are cloud billboards galore. There are cloud ads in airports, city centers, all over ...
  
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• These Norton-Approved Jeans Can Keep Hackers Out of Your Pants

  17-12-2014 16:07
  
  Worried about hackers taking a crack at the cards stashed in your pants? The year's most low-tech "wearable" has your back (pocket). 
  Clothing maker Betabrands is currently running a crowd funding campaign for RFID-defeating clothing in partnership with PC security firm Norton. The line-up includes a $198 blazer and a pair of $168 jeans. The ‘Ready Jeans Protected by Norton’ feature two pockets—one in the front and back—protected by RFID-blocking fabrics.To read this article in full
  
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• BlackBerry Classic Review: A Killer Smartphone for Keyboard Lovers

  17-12-2014 16:00
  
  If you're still using a BlackBerry smartphone with a "physical" QWERTY keyboard, or if you've switched platforms but still harbor fantasies about a return to the good old days when you didn't spend as much time cursing your on-screen keypad as you do typing on it, the BlackBerry Classic is the smartphone you've been waiting for.BlackBerry returned to its roots with the Classic, which was officially launched this morning in New York City. The device looks like a larger, more modern version of
  
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• Microsoft helps crack developer problems with Bing-based tool

  17-12-2014 15:55
  
  Sometimes, even the best coders get stuck and need a little advice. Enter Bing Developer Assistant, designed to help Visual Studio developers take advantage of Microsoft’s search engine to find tips on how to untangle thorny programming problems.The free tool was released on Tuesday and aims to increase developer productivity by making it easier to find and reuse millions of code samples and projects.For example, when developers get a compilation error, they can right click on the error and
  
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• BYOD Brings Bah Humbug This Holiday Season

  17-12-2014 15:20
  
  'Tis the holiday season, but how will you be spending it?More than half of you will be logging on two or more hours a day -- some spending up to eight hours -- catching up on work, according to a survey by email data protection company ZixCorp.Thanks to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) programs, remote work policies and powerful mobile devices, a knowledge worker is only a hand's reach away from "clocking in," so to speak. Instead of unwrapping presents, people will be typing and tapping on their
  
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• 10 Chrome Extensions for Developers

  17-12-2014 15:00
  
  Hooked on Google ChromeImage by GoogleAs I mentioned in a recent Gearhead post, I’ve become hooked on Google’s Chrome browser. But as good as it is, like all software that becomes part of our routine workflows, it needs a little polish and enhancement to really work with us instead of just for us. That’s why we add extensions to browsers, and the add-on marketplace for Chrome is really amazing. Over the six years since Chrome’s launch I’ve tested literally hundreds of extensions and th
  
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• Coder, Sell Thyself

  17-12-2014 14:42
  
  Many highly skilled coders limit themselves to obscurity or the bonds of employment because they are afraid of selling their own services. They have an inherent fear of sales and of being a salesperson. What they don’t realize is that with a shift in thinking and some business building activities, they can win clients, launch a prosperous and independent business, and experience high levels of personal and professional freedom without ever having to sell to anyone.
  The most important aspec
  
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• Your New iPhone 6 Plus Needs These 8 Free Apps

  17-12-2014 14:07
  
  The iPhone 6 Plus and landscape modeImage by Jim Lynch/ITworldOne of the best things about the iPhone 6 Plus is how it takes advantage of landscape mode. You'll notice this the first time you go to your home screen and flip your iPhone 6 Plus on its side: Your dock shifts to the right, and all of your app icons switch position too.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Salesforce Connects SharePoint Files to its Cloud With New Tool

  17-12-2014 14:02
  
  Salesforce, the not-so-little cloud CRM company that could, is furthering its play to bring everybody everywhere into the fold with the launch of Salesforce Files Connect, a new tool that brings files from on-premises Microsoft SharePoint into a company's  cloud workflow. 
  The general idea is that attaching files to things, in general, is way harder than it has to be: Salesforce Senior Vice President of Marketing for Community Cloud Michael Stone cited a recent IDC study that found 61% of
  
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• Netflix wins Dutch patent suit, can keep operating as usual

  17-12-2014 13:45
  
  European Netflix users, breathe easy: The video streaming service can keep operating as it always did now that Dutch patent lawsuit has been thrown out of court.Netflix was sued in the District Court of the Hague in October last year by OpenTV, a U.S. company that makes software for digital TV services including video-on-demand, program guides and enhanced television applications.Netflix also operates in other European countries, including France, Germany and Spain, but OpenTV is not suing th
  
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• Uber Sways Regulators With Old School Lobbying Tactics

  17-12-2014 13:09
  
  "Corporations are people, my friend," Mitt Romney famously quipped during his presidential campaign. Like flesh and blood people, corporations have the right to donate money to politicians and lobby for whatever causes they favor. And in the case of Uber, the cause it favors is ... Uber.The ride sharing service built a formidable lobbying team and has become masterful at using social media to rattle the cages of politicians and regulators when it believes its interests are threatened, accordi
  
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• 16 of the Hottest IT Skills for 2015

  17-12-2014 13:00
  
  The Hottest IT and Tech Skills for 2015Image by ShutterstockWhat skills should IT professionals add to their toolbox to increase their compensation in 2015? To find out, CIO.com worked with David Foote, chief analyst and research officer with Foote Partners, to comb through the firm's quarterly data to uncover what skills will lead to higher pay in the short term and help them navigate the tech industry for next career move in the long term.Foote Partners uses a proprietary methodology to track
  
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• How to Work Out the Kinks in the Cloud

  17-12-2014 12:14
  
  Blame it on the public cloud service providers. It was, after all, the Amazons of the world that raised the bar by making the provisioning of IT resources look so easy. Why should users have to wait? If I can get it quickly and easily there, the reasoning goes, why can't I get the same agility from my internal data center?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Review: Alpha Anywhere Aces Offline Mobile Apps

  17-12-2014 12:00
  
  One of the defining characteristics of mobile devices is that you can't count on them being online all the time, but you still need them and want to use them when they are offline. Native mobile apps can often deal with offline operation gracefully; for mobile Web and hybrid mobile apps, offline operation can be a bit more difficult. Things get even hairier when the app connects to a remote database, which is often the case with business apps. Triple the hairiness if the user needs to edit data
  
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• Daum Kakao will release taxi-hailing app in South Korea

  17-12-2014 11:00
  
  South Korea’s largest messenger app provider, Daum Kakao, will launch a cab-hailing app in the country early next year, working with licensed taxi drivers in a move to avoid the backlash that Uber Technologies has faced in the Korean market.Daum Kakao aims to launch the service, Kakao Taxi, in the first quarter of 2015 with two separate apps: one for the taxi drivers, which will be out first to recruit enough cabs to the service, and another for passengers, the company said Wednesday. The s
  
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• Sony high-res OLED screen attaches to any eyewear

  17-12-2014 10:55
  
  If you’re not a fan of Google Glass-style displays yet, Sony hopes you might give its new detachable OLED a chance.The Japanese electronics manufacturer has announced a prototype head-mounted display that can easily attach to any sort of eyewear and display information on its high-res OLED module.The device is much closer in design to Glass than Sony’s previous head-mounted wearable, SmartEyeglasses, which are glasses that can project basic green text and graphics across the lenses.The ne
  
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• Tokyo court hears lawsuit against Apple over laptop charger pins

  17-12-2014 10:35
  
  The Tokyo District Court has begun hearing arguments in a lawsuit brought by a Japanese parts maker against Apple over alleged patent infringements.Shimano Manufacturing filed the suit against Apple in August claiming that it abused its market dominance by demanding unreasonable rebates on parts including pins used in charger cables for the MacBook Pro. It sought an injunction against sales of some Apple laptops in Japan, and compensation.Shimano is demanding ¥1 billion (US$8.4 million) from
  
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• Apple Shutters Russian Online Store as Ruble Plummets

  17-12-2014 04:01
  
  Apple's online store for Russian customers was offline all day Tuesday after the U.S. company shut down the mart because of the ruble's plunge.
  Although Apple did not immediately reply to questions late Tuesday, it had told other news outlets earlier in the day that it had closed the digital doors "while we review pricing."
  The Russian ruble fell as much as 20% Tuesday against the dollar before recovering slightly. But the dramatic drop of the ruble's value would have translated into plummet
  
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• Google's work on full encryption chugs along, with Yahoo's help

  17-12-2014 00:25
  
  Google is making progress developing a user-friendly tool for fully encrypting people’s messages on their computers, with coding help from Yahoo and a transition to GitHub.Contributions from Alex Stamos, Yahoo’s chief security officer, and his team have been incorporated into an updated pre-release version of the browser extension announced Tuesday, Google said in a blog post.Google cited progress in other areas for the project, which aims to give Internet users an easy-to-use tool for en
  
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• Vier op de tien IT-beslissers besteden technisch beheer deels uit

  17-12-2014 00:17
  41% van de IT-beslissers besteedt het technisch beheer deels uit en houdt het functionele beheer in eigen huis. Onderzoek van SPS, specialist in IT-beheer onder 145 Nederlandse IT-beslissers, duidt hierop. Slechts 3% van de ondervraagden geeft aan alle beheertaken, zowel functioneel als technisch, volledig uit te... lees meer
  
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• Nieuwe werknemers moeten lang wachten op mobiele apps en tools

  17-12-2014 00:17
  Het kost organisaties in Nederland gemiddeld drie weken om nieuwe medewerkers uit te rusten met mobility-tools en -applicaties. Bij tijdelijke krachten loopt dit op tot vijf weken. Daar wijst onderzoek in opdracht van VMware, specialist in virtualisatie en cloud-infrastructuur op.
  
  Het onderzoek verkent de gevolgen van... lees meer
  
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