Is there any enterprise IT professional who doesn't have at least a moderate interest in this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas? (And not because of the Bieb.)
Though the show is restricted to consumer electronics mavens, you can't tell me there weren't a sizable number of corporate geeks among the more than 140,000 expected attendees.
The synergy between the consumer and enterprise IT worlds is nothing new. It's been the topic of articles, talks, whitepapers, and industry news for months. As we've discussed before, as corporate workers increasingly insist on bringing their gadgets to work, IT is tasked with merging them safely on to the company network.
Hence, IT pros are eyeing developments in smartphones and mobile devices like tablets as essential to the future of their applications. And enterprises that ignore the impact of consumer-generated social media on business do so at their own peril.
Given all that, what stood out this week at the CES for corporate geeks? Not being there myself, I am being forced to rely on eyewitnesses, but here are a few trends that I've picked up from other sources:
More and better smartphones -- from everyone. As Internet Evolution contributor Alan Reiter points out, smartphones are getting faster, conforming to LTE networks, and acquiring more sophisticated features and apps. And no vendor should be counted out at this point. Windows phones just might catch up to Android if RIM continues to dilly dally with new releases, Reiter says. All of this points to enterprise users becoming better equipped with a wider variety of smartphones needing support.
Ultrabooks. Based on Intel's design for ultrathin laptops, a range of suppliers have made this year's CES the "ultrabook show." Vendors such as Dell, HP, Samsung, and LG are showing products that will undoubtedly appeal to a wide audience, including corporate mobile workers.
Feature consolidation and new combinations.Smart cameras. Home-based videoconferencing. Weird broadband uses. The CES is showcasing new combinations and uses of technology. And even though enterprise IT may not be interested just yet, users are bound to find ways to incorporate some of the new gear into their work. (Telecommuters may love home videoconferencing, for instance.)
The CES continues to play to the consumer market specialist, but wise IT pros are keeping an eye on the trends. Today's plaything is more than likely to turn up in tomorrow's field office.
Things would not be that much different outside of Vegas. Indeed, I believe that Vegas learned its marketing stuff from trade shows -- not the other way around!
Wow an article on Mashable that actually makes sense thats new. CES 2012: The End of Planned Obsolescence. Products that wear out or become outmoded after limited use. It is a strategy that has worked across many industries for decades, but in a persistently down economy, the prospect of paying to replace a just-past warranty but now dead product is an anathema. That reality has forced some companies to think different, and the proof was at CES.
Somewhat tongue in cheek, somewhat seriously - but isn't that part of the "going to trade shows" experience, to come back to home base and say "I saw this and it would help" or "We might wanna hold off purchasing XYZ for a little while, something new is coming up"
It's gotta be more than free totebags, pens and sticky dispensers, and countless tear sheets
From an enterprise IT point of view, you wouldn't want to send your employees to CES lest they come up with new demands for gadgets that they should be allowed to use for work :)
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Facebook and Twitter are great for posting cat pictures. But are people really using social media for life-changing communications? Like, if a hurricane comes by and blows down their house?
In a standout presentation at the Jefferies 2013 Global Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in New York this week, the UK government talked about becoming a "very intelligent client."
A consumer business would have to be crazy or desperate to change call-center software in December, the peak of the holiday season. But that was exactly Positec's position.
To help enterprises deploy software faster for mobile, social, big-data, and cloud applications, IBM this week acquired development tools vendor UrbanCode.
Internet Explorer seems like a relic of the 90s, like parachute pants and Friends. But that's just me. I'm a Chrome guy, and before that I used Firefox.
Microsoft's buy of Skype could revitalize Phone 7, give Microsoft a social, gaming, and collaborative strategy, and spell the end for old-fashioned telco voice. It will also certainly give Google a headache in its Voice, Chat, and even Android strategy!
Maybe Google+ will be competitive and maybe it won't, but it's likely to introduce video calling and OTT communications as a replacement for standard telephony. There will be major consequences to this, and we don't have an FCC or political framework capable of coping.
Comparing Internet services is tough because service providers price and market their services based on a best-case scenario connection that most consumers will never enjoy.
That's what Larry Page said on Google's earnings call, referring to the conjunction of mobile and the cloud. Well, let's chart it then! We need to be thinking about an Internet where 90% of our traffic goes to 70 destinations within 40 miles of us.
Many enterprises view high-speed broadband connections as ubiquitous. Yet in about 20 percent of the country, businesses and their employees do not have access to even DSL connections. This shortcoming diminishes enterprises' ability to support their employees.
A survey by JD Powers found that customer interest in product features is lessening as phones evolve. Rather than features, price is driving purchases, and that change could have a dramatic impact on how IT departments secure these devices.
A recent release of the popular TweetDeck app for Twitter power-users gives new life to software that had previously taken a wrong turn. Here's a quick walk-through of the new TweetDeck, to show you why it should be at the top of your Twitter toolkit.
The decision could discourage innovators looking to the past, and require companies to build from the ground up, leading to a new generation of stagnation in the IT world.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
Ushering in a new era of cognitive computing systems, IBM announced today the IBM Watson Engagement Advisor, a technology breakthrough that allows brands to crunch big data in record time to transform the way they engage clients in key functions such as customer service, marketing, and sales.
Expert Integrated Systems: Changing the Experience & Economics of IT In this e-book, we take an in-depth look at these expert integrated systems -- what they are, how they work, and how they have the potential to help CIOs achieve dramatic savings while restoring IT's role as business innovator. READ THIS eBOOK
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