Appliances that link on-premises systems to cloud resources will mean datacenters with less equipment – in smaller facilities. On the eve of the millennium, a shot was fired that hardly registered contained in the walls of datacenters. Launched in 1999, Salesforce.com would go from being an extra dotcom to reshaping the way in which businesses buy and deploy software. Its “no software” campaign really meant no software running on your datacenter. It pushed CRM software out of the datacenter and into the cloud. In its wake, a brand new category would emerge. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) quickly spread way beyond CRM to assimilate other software packages, forsaking a graveyard of once-mighty software empires. Siebel who? But a number of big iron remained in place, unruffled by the limited power available to software that runs too far-off from the datacenter, where most data still lives. Ultimately, SaaS has only managed to capture a sliver of the information essential to run most businesses. The emerging category of infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)... Read More »

The security firm SplashData publishes its list of the 25 worst passwords of 2013. 10 Top Password Managers (Click image for slideshow.) Thanks to the Adobe security breach last year, which exposed the IDs and encrypted passwords for 38 million Adobe.com users, we now know that probably the most usual password on the web is “123456.” As such, SplashData, a working laptop or computer security firm that makes password management apps, recognized “123456” because the “Worst Password of 2013.” The corporate says its list of the 25 worst passwords relies at the frequency of passwords found online by reason of disclosures — largely but not exclusively from the Adobe incident. The convenience with which these passwords can be cracked using brute-force methods shouldn’t be taken under consideration. A two-time runner-up, “123456” has dethroned “password,” a native favorite using its jaw-dropping obviousness and its always amusing self-referential nature. It slipped only to No. 2 at the list and will regain the... Read More »

Analysts predict US tech companies may lose $180 billion by 2016 using international concerns about intelligence agencies’ spying. 10 Cool DARPA Projects In Development (click image for larger view) Creating an enormous digital dragnet designed to aid U.S. intelligence agencies spot terrorists before they’ll strike might seem great inside the abstract. But what are the true-world implications? For US technology firms that sell hardware, software, and services, that could be a collective lack of $22 billion to $35 billion through 2016 because of foreign businesses and governments worrying if the National Security Agency (NSA) can spy on those service or product. That figure comes via the data Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington-based policy research group backed by many leading technology firms, including Cisco, Google, IBM, and Intel. “The prospective fallout is pretty huge given how much our economy relies on the data economy for its growth,” Rebecca MacKinnon, a senior fellow at Washington-based policy group New America Foundation, told Bloomberg. “It’s increasingly where... Read More »

Consider these four guidelines for enterprise mobile application development within the age of mobile and cloud. The ever-growing dependency on mobile technology has made the necessity for enterprise applications a hot topic. While convenient for staff, the rapidly evolving application ecosystem is fraught with complexities for businesses. Developers should consider these challenges once they begin building applications that access core corporate data. Things like mobile device management (MDM), mobile application management (MAM), enterprise mobility management (EMM), and cloud services all create confusion about what you want to start enabling your employees with high-value business applications. Many device management vendors say that they’re going to manage everything on the device level, while cloud vendors want enterprise decision makers to shift data to their cloud technology (something that provides many enterprises heartburn due to level of risk to data and other security). In any case, many existing cloud vendors aren’t providing the prescriptive instructions on ways to develop and deploy applications to finish users. I’ve highlighted four... Read More »

Microsoft Office 365 will soon become more collaborative, specializing in relevant content to present a more personalized work experience. Microsoft In 2013: 7 Lessons Learned (Click image for larger view and for slideshow.) Microsoft kicked off its SharePoint 2014 conference on Monday with a preview of recent Office 365 technologies designed to make the cloud-based productivity suite more collaborative and cohesive. Users openly share information on Facebook, Twitter, and other popular social platforms, but at work, the experience tends to not be like that, Office GM Julia White told InformationWeek in an interview. She said Microsoft wants its new products to “cut in the course of the noise” by specializing in a customized experience that recognizes the user’s current needs and automatically surfaces relevant content. Microsoft’s plans hinge on Office Graph, which was introduced Monday and gives an “intelligence fabric” that runs within the background, constantly analyzing content and mapping relationships. A forthcoming application codenamed Oslo can be one of the products that rely upon... Read More »