Category: ITManagementNews

ITManagementNews

Accenture CEO: Once In An Era Replatforming Of Global Business

Accenture announced the formation of Accenture Cloud First with a $3 billion investment over three years. Accenture’s $3 billion investment will be used to continue advancing — often together with its cloud and broader technology ecosystem partners — industry roadmaps, data models, and solutions; cloud AI data and AI architectures; integrated full-stack infrastructure and applications capabilities; cloud tools, assets, and automation to drive lower unit cost and innovation; and research and development in edge computing and related cloud technologies.

Accenture Cloud First is a new multi-service group of 70,000 cloud professionals that brings together the full power and breadth of Accenture’s industry and technology capabilities, ecosystem partnerships, and deep commitment to learning and upskilling clients’ employees and to responsible business, with the singular focus of enabling organizations to move to the cloud with greater speed and achieve greater value for all their stakeholders at this critical time.

“COVID-19 has created a new inflection point that requires every company to dramatically accelerate the move to the cloud as a foundation for digital transformation to build the resilience, new experiences and products, trust, speed, and structural cost reduction that the ongoing health, economic and societal crisis demands — and that a better future for all requires,” said Accenture CEO Julie Sweet. “Accenture Cloud First and our substantial investment demonstrate our commitment to delivering greater value to our clients when they need it most. Digital transformation requires cloud at scale, and post-COVID leadership requires that every business become a ‘cloud-first’ business.”

The idea is to help clients across all industries rapidly become “cloud-first” businesses and accelerate their digital transformation to realize greater value at speed and scale. Karthik Narain will lead Accenture Cloud First and join the Global Management Committee, effective October 1.

Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture, discusses how the company is investing in helping businesses “replatform” in the cloud:

Once In An Era Replatforming Of Global Business

There has been this massive acceleration in the cloud. Really what’s happening is a once in an era replatforming of global business. We are 20 percent in the cloud today. We believe we will move to around 80 percent in just five years. What Accenture Cloud First is about is helping companies get there faster by bringing together all of the capabilities with a singular focus of how are we going to replatform at speed.

Pre-COVID we worked with a ton of the digital leaders who have been out front. What we see is that there are three important components. First of all, with our cloud partners across the spectrum it’s really critical to not just move companies but to move entire industries. That takes the road map, the learning, and the data integration about what problems are specific to the industry. We are going to be investing in those solutions often along with our partners.

The second area is the speed, investing in better automation and technology that is going to help not just move these companies faster but actually also be able to operate in the cloud with increasingly more productivity. Think about the cloud becoming a platform for their productivity.

Investing In Making Replatforming Sustainable

The third place is around talent and sustainability. If you are replatforming entire global businesses in the cloud we have to do so in a sustainable way. This means getting out of the datacenter to the cloud and what it does for climate change. It’s around things like supply chain and making sure that you are building in the ability to have the integrity of the supply chain and that you are reskilling.

We will be investing in making this replatforming sustainable. This is core as we think about post-COVID our belief as companies across the globe and government that we need to make a better future for all by building in this view of all stakeholders from the planet to our people.

Accenture CEO Julie Sweet: Once In An Era Replatforming Of Global Business

September 17, 2020
Box CEO: Digital Selling Helping Tech Firms Prosper

“We are firing on all cylinders right now even though it’s a very dynamic environment,” says Box CEO Aaron Levie. “One of the great ironies probably that we’ll look back on is that the industry that is focused on selling digital technology spent so much time in the physical world trying to sell that technology. You can do remote selling over a video conference, over Webex, or Zoom in many cases just as easily as you could in person.”

Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, discusses how tech companies during the pandemic have discovered that it’s more effective for them to sell remotely using all of the technologies they have developed rather than relying so much on physical meetings:

We Are Firing On All Cylinders Right Now

We were super happy about the Q2 that we just announced a couple of weeks ago. We were able to beat on revenue estimates and the guidance we gave on revenue, on EPS, on operating margin, and we also delivered strong billings and cash flow performance. We also raised our guidance for the full year on revenue as well as our operating margin targets for the full year.

We are firing on all cylinders right now even though it’s a very dynamic environment. Obviously, the broader macroeconomic environment still remains a challenge in many sectors. We are seeing growth at this time and we’re seeing a lot of our enterprise customers continue to expand with us as they go and drive broader digital transformation initiatives.

Great Irony: Tech Industry Learns To Sell Digitally

One of the great ironies probably that we’ll look back on is that the industry that is focused on selling digital technology spent so much time in the physical world trying to sell that technology. We’re seeing is that customers want really great products. They want those products to be delivered efficiently to them. You can do remote selling over a video conference, over Webex, or Zoom in many cases just as easily as you could in person. The other benefit is you can now reach more customers in a single day or in a single week.

As an example, we have our customer conference happening tomorrow. We’ll have about 25 000 registered attendees to that event which is three or four times larger than what we would have in the physical world. We’re able to reach more customers and we’re able to have more conversations. We’re ultimately able to support our customers right now with our technology which is helping them move to the cloud and helping them secure their corporate data. It is also easier to collaborate securely across enterprises and then ultimately integrate with all of their applications.

Box CEO Aaron Levie: Digital Selling Helping Tech Firms Prosper

September 16, 2020
Big Tech: IBM Deploys Face Mask Surveillance System

This may or may not worry you depending on your point of view. IBM has deployed a super intelligent face mask surveillance system for businesses (or government) to discreetly track face mask usage by employees, customers, and anyone who enters a building where their system is installed. The platform will send alerts to the powers that be if anyone is either not wearing a face mask properly or not wearing one at all.

Presumably, if the tech savvy eye in the sky notices an infraction it will quickly enable management and their enforcement teams to confront the individuals to rectify their face mask violation. How dare they! It will also monitor in real-time crowd density, social distancing, and elevated body temps of those who are entering an establishment.

IBM Cloud released a video narrated by Ian Smalley (below) that explains how their technology works to enable any business or government to surveil and enforce mask usage:

Here is a really cool way that Edge Computing is being used to help businesses reopen and operate safely. We know face masks can substantially reduce the transmission of aerosol borne viruses. But sometimes people forget to wear them properly or at all. IBM Edge Application Manager places analytical workloads with Edge enabled cameras that can recognize face masks and determine if they are being worn effectively.

Since analysis is being performed at the camera the video data and individual privacy are protected. You also avoid the expense of transmitting, storing, or analyzing that image data any further. Alerts are sent every time the camera detects improperly worn or non-existent face masks. Then it sends the aggregated data back to the IBM Maximo Worker Insights platform allowing you to highlight face mask activity in your facilities.

It’s pretty amazing stuff and that’s only scratching the surface. IBM Application Manager is also using Edge Computing to monitor crowd density, social distancing, and elevated body temps of those who are entering an establishment.

September 14, 2020
WSJ: Microsoft Partners With Startups To Win Cloud War

According to the Wall Street Journal Microsoft is partnering with tech startups as part of its fierce battle to win the cloud war against Amazon, Google, and others. Microsoft just announced today a global strategic alliance with cloud security startup Abnormal Security. The deal is straight forward. The fast-growing startup moves its platform to Azure and Microsoft will offer Abnormal Security to its huge list of enterprise customers. Amazon has been employing this tactic as well per WSJ.

In the latest deal with Abnormal Security, Azure customers can purchase Abnormal Security directly via Microsoft co-sell and through the Azure Marketplace. Microsoft says that all purchases count towards enterprise Azure commitments.

“Microsoft for Startups is committed to helping B2B startups use the Microsoft platform to scale their business quickly and deliver innovative AI-powered solutions to enterprise customers,” said Jeffrey Ma, VP Microsoft for Startups. “Abnormal has hit the ground running, seeing success with Fortune 1000 companies in a short time, and we’re looking forward to joining forces to further accelerate their security solution to our global customers.”

Evan Reiser, Co-founder and CEO at Abnormal Security said, “When considering the right cloud infrastructure, startups need to look at both the technology platform and the business opportunity. As a cybersecurity company, we were very intrigued with Azure’s inherent security, privacy and AI offerings and as a startup, Microsoft’s go-to-market support and access to the largest enterprises is unmatched. We decided that to be a high-growth company selling to the Fortune 1000, it made business sense to partner with Microsoft and move our business to Azure.”

“Abnormal’s unparalleled market traction is a testament to incredible value being delivered to their customers and the ability to protect organizations from these cyberattacks that have cost them over $2b. I couldn’t be any more excited to see the accelerated growth with Microsoft co-selling the solution,” said Saam Motamedi, General Partner at Greylock Partners.

It’s definitely a win-win for Microsoft and startups like Abnormal Security. Microsoft gets a fast growing startup exclusively on its platform and Abnormal Security gets access to Microsoft’s massive connections with enterprise companies.

September 14, 2020
Intel CEO: Tiger Lake Will Deliver 20% More Performance

Intel launched their 10nm Tiger Lake CPU today increasing product performance by 20 percent. “Our 10-nanometer process that our Tiger Lake product will run on today is a step function improvement from the 10-nanometer process we launched just last year,” says Intel CEO Bob Swan. “Its process will deliver 15 to 20 percent more performance in the products that we are launching. At the end of the day, product performance is what matters most to our customers.”

Bob Swan, CEO of Intel, discusses the launch of their 10nm Tiger Lake CPU which provides a significant improvement in product performance:

Product Performance Is What Matters

The PC is a more and more an essential ingredient of our everyday lives. Whether you are studying from home, working from home, and trying to stay connected from home, it’s just more important. The Tiger Lake product that we are launching today, in essence, addresses those activities that we are doing. Whether it’s content creation, inherent productivity, or connectivity, it addresses those key things that are becoming more relevant in terms of how we engage with our PC and how we engage with each other.

At the end of the day, product performance is what matters most to our customers. Under that umbrella, there are multiple things that have evolved over time. Process continues to be very important. Packaging becomes more relevant as we pull different technologies together. Software plays an increasingly important role. The technologies required to build a computer today are much different than they used to be. With Tiger Lake, it’s not just about the CPU or the microprocessor, it’s about the WiFi. Connectivity is so important, upgrading WiFi, and upgrading graphics capabilities, The nature of the PC today and how it’s evolved incorporates more technology. Where process continues to be important, it’s not relatively as important as it once was.

Tiger Lake Will Deliver 20 Percent More Performance

The naming convention over time has lost its relevance. It’s become less of a technical articulation of capabilities and a little bit more of a marketing articulation. Our 10-nanometer process that our Tiger Lake product will run on today is a step function improvement from the 10-nanometer process we launched just last year. Its process will deliver 15 to 20 percent more performance in the products that we are launching. It’s a very exciting time not just because of the Tiger Lake product (the CPU) but how we’ve coupled it with other technologies to address the most top of mind experiences with advanced processing technology that we refer to as SuperFin.

The relative importance of graphics and the role that it plays, not just in gaming but in communications today is so much higher. That’s why with this product launch the enhanced capabilities of our integrated graphics is a real big bump in overall performance. It’s also an increasingly relevant technology and capability in today’s PC. In essence, the use of the PC and what the graphics technology we’ve built into this product does is rising the role that the PC will play as it become more and more an essential ingredient in our everyday lives.

There Will Be Significant Demand For Tiger Lake

Over the last several years we’ve added $20 billion in revenue to the size of the company. From our PC, our internet of things, our communication, and from our cloud businesses, we’ve experienced dramatic growth. It was critical for us to keep pace in ensuring that we have the capacity and the supply to deal with that growth. We’ve made tremendous progress at the end of last year and through the first six months of this year getting that capacity in place.

For both 14-nanometer, which today is the lion’s share of the products we are shipping, but increasingly we are adding capacity. We expect there will be significant demand for the new product that we announced today but also the new products that we have coming in the second half of this year, particularly in the server Xeon chip.

https://youtu.be/PMAi5lXMkXA
Intel CEO Bob Swan: Tiger Lake Will Deliver 20% More Performance

September 2, 2020
How To Successfully Manage A Remote Team

Team performance is inextricably linked to leadership – that much has not changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the lockdown-induced shift to remote work did transform the particular challenges of leadership. How to keep up productivity while being mindful of members’ physical and mental health? How to hold effective meetings and minimize technological vagaries?

According to a recent Forbes article, work-from-home (WFH) arrangements don’t automatically impair employee engagement. Rather, it depends on leaders whether team potential is harnessed during WFH.

Here is a closer look at the big issues business leaders – from team supervisors to CEOs – face during the pandemic. And how to best tackle them.

Communication

With employees unable to meet in hallways, stop by each other’s offices, or have a quick chat at the water cooler, ensuring communication is a core challenge leaders face.

A recent survey by Microsoft published in the Harvard Business Review found that managers took on a more active role in communication, both within and across teams. Overall, they sent 115% more instant messages after the transition to remote work, while other employees sent 50% more.

The key, however, is not to communicate simply more – but more effectively. This means communicating succinctly, with clear goals and expectations in mind, and choosing your channels wisely.

Email is the default avenue of communication for many leaders. It is also terribly inefficient, as another recent Forbes analysis outlines.

Generally, email is fine for asking quick questions, sharing a file, or responding to a scheduling request. But as soon as something requires more complex discussions, a nuanced understanding, or creative input, having a (video) call is more efficient.

Choosing a communication platform for your team is one of the most crucial WFH decisions.

Overall, it is best to centralize communication. Instead of juggling notifications from five different apps, team members just have to keep their eye on one or two. For this, team collaboration apps, conference calling services, and Unified Communications platforms are invaluable.

Meetings

Online meetings are an integral part of WFH – but leaders need to make sure that they are both necessary and efficient.

The number and duration of meetings – and the strictness of the schedule – are within the purview of managers and team leaders.

Microsoft’s researchers found that while meetings increased overall, they were considerably shorter than before, averaging 30-minutes. Other articles also suggest that meetings lasting between 20 and 30 minutes are optimal for keeping engagement high and proceedings efficient.

Steve Jobs’ cardinal rule of meetings was to have only essential people present, which cut down on explanatory ballast and tech troubles. Each item on the agenda – well-defined in advance – should have a participant responsible for it.

Trust

Trust is an integral component of leadership, now more so than ever.

While it’s natural to be curious about how your staff handles their work projects and timelines during WFH, it’s crucial to show confidence in them. Resist the temptations of surveillance and micro-management.

Assume that your team is doing their best. In some cases, this may not be on par with their normal performance at the office – especially if they are facing added challenges at home, such as childcare.

In general, it’s best not to focus on inputs – exactly which tasks each team member is tackling at a time. Instead, concentrate on team accomplishments – the overall outputs.

Remote Team Building

Fostering team spirit and building rapport among physically distanced staff is currently a central leadership task.

Microsoft’s survey found that virtual social meetings increased by 10% within a month of the transition to remote work. Team members wanted to connect with each other on a human basis.

Leaders can harness this need and take the initiative. Organize virtual ‘casual Fridays’, encourage ‘water-cooler’ chat spaces, schedule digital coffee breaks, or set up a Slack channel dedicated to swapping baby pictures, memes, and cat videos.

Balance Work And Life

Finally, it’s a manager’s responsibility to ensure that remote team members can successfully balance their work and personal lives.

When working from a home office, it’s only too easy to let sales figures or annual reports encroach on otherwise relaxing evenings. Especially if it seems like other team members are constantly online.

Managers need to discourage always-on culture in the interest of their team members’ mental and physical health.

Removing incentives for 24/7 availability, discouraging messages at all hours, strictly limiting meetings to daytime, and implementing a virtual out-of-office policy go a long way towards achieving this balance.

Adapt And Succeed

Recent statistics show that two thirds of companies are planning to keep a distributed workforce model post-pandemic. That means that leading a remote team will no longer be a temporary emergency measure. It will become a standard requirement and essential leadership skill.

The sooner managers find sustainable solutions to the challenges of heading a distributed team, the better they will be able to operate in a business world transformed by COVID-19. And the larger their success will be – both for themselves and their team.

August 31, 2020
Ecommerce Is Growing Much More Rapidly Than Before

“Demand for space is actually increasing because ecommerce is growing much more rapidly than it was before,” says global logistics real estate company Prologis CEO Hamid Moghadam. “We probably got three, four, or five years of growth in a quarter or two. Ecommerce is a big tailwind for our business. It’s a pretty good business otherwise but ecommerce just supercharges it.”

Hamid Moghadam, chairman, and CEO of Prologis, the global leader in logistics real estate, while discussing their earnings release says the pandemic has rapidly accelerated the growth of ecommerce worldwide:

Ecommerce Is Growing Much More Rapidly Than Before

We started the year with a very optimistic outlook and of course, all of that was before COVID. When we got to the first-quarter results, they were strong, but we softened our outlook a bit because nobody really knew what we were facing. As the business has progressed in the second quarter we’re finding that demand for space is actually increasing because ecommerce is growing much more rapidly than it was before.

We probably got three, four, or five years of growth in a quarter or two. Ecommerce is a big tailwind for our business. It’s a pretty good business otherwise but ecommerce just supercharges it.

Our Business Is Vital To The Supply Chain

We run a global business. If you look at our collections globally, the US is actually stronger than the global numbers. But if you look at the overall numbers they are actually running better than last year which was a record year. You might ask why in an environment like this that collections are running ahead of last year? The reason is pretty simple. Our business is vital to the supply chain. Even people whose businesses are not doing well have to keep their inventory somewhere and that’s usually in one of our buildings.

An interesting statistic is that 2.5 percent of global GDP goes through our billion square feet around the world. We’ve got pretty good visibility as to what’s going on in the global economy. Both on the good end and the soft end people need inventory and a place to store their goods.

Houston Is The Softest Market In The US

Houston is probably the softest market in the US. Globally, I would have to say France is probably one of the weaker markets. But generally, through this cycle, we’ve held up pretty well around the world. The primary reason is that unlike other cycles supply of space was very tight going into this downturn. Vacancies were under five percent and utilization rates were in the mid-80s. Both of those are records.

I’ve been doing this for about 37 years and those are numbers that are unprecedented in our business. Unprecedented good.

Ecommerce Is Growing Much More Rapidly Than Before, Says Prologis CEO Hamid Moghadam

July 21, 2020
Tech Companies Must Have A Subscription Business Model: Nutanix CEO

“You have got to have a subscription business model just like Netflix, just like Adobe and just like Microsoft,” says Nutanix CEO Dheeraj Pandey. Customers subscribe and we stream innovation. We’ve been streaming a lot to our customers. We talked about Home Depot recently. They’re seeing a record demand in the pandemic and we really helped them consolidate their infrastructure.”

Dheeraj Pandey, CEO of Nutanix, a leading enterprise cloud technology provider, discusses how a subscription business model is key for survival and growth for technology companies:

Tech Companies Must Have A Subscription Business Model

As a company, we started almost ten years ago in a recession. The first killer workload for hyper-convergence was virtual desktops. People said Windows is dead. We said long live Windows. We went after federal customers and did an amazing job of building a very reliable company. Just taking a step back, we’re in the business of building cloud software. A lot of this comes down to the word software and cloud. We’re really thinking hard about being amorphous, being everywhere, being in the private data centers at the edge, and in the public cloud.

Cloud is hard and you really need to make it simple, seamless, and secure. But most importantly, you have got to have a subscription business model just like Netflix, just like Adobe and just like Microsoft. Customers subscribe and we stream innovation. We’ve been streaming a lot to our customers. We talked about Home Depot recently. They’re seeing a record demand in the pandemic and we really helped them consolidate their infrastructure.

Cloud Is About Consuming Smaller Things

The best way to measure our performance is a cloud subscription currency. We started talking about it as of last quarter and we grew really well with annual contract value. If you think about it cloud is about consuming smaller things. Hardware was about seven-year entitlement and software is still five to seven years. We’re saying let’s go do three-year terms and one-year terms. You’ve got to start small.

The recession is also the best time to go back with bite-size of what the customer really wants to buy. Annual contract value is the way of measuring our growth. It is also going to make this whole transition. I talked about Netflix and others and this whole transition unlocks amazing operational efficiencies for the company as well.

Tech Companies Must Have A Subscription Business Model: Nutanix CEO Dheeraj Pandey

July 19, 2020
Court Kills EU-US Privacy Shield

An EU court has struck down a privacy agreement that made it possible to share the data of EU citizens with the US.

Under the EU-US Privacy Shield, companies could implement higher privacy standards to allow for the transfer of EU citizen data. This was necessary because of the EU’s stricter privacy legislation. In spite of the goals behind the Privacy Shield, privacy groups raised a number of concerns about its effectiveness.

In particular, advocates were concerned about the privacy threat the US government poses. Thanks to the Edward Snowden leaks, the world is aware of the US government’s long history of digital spying, even on law-abiding citizens. Advocates were concerned that, even if a company met the necessary data sharing privacy requirements, there was no guarantee the US government wouldn’t snoop on any shared data.

Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy advocate, initially filed the complaint that eventually made its way to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). After considering the case, the ECJ struck down the law.

This will have major ramifications for many companies with customers in the EU. At the very least, companies will need to use Standard Contractual Clauses. This is a type of non-negotiable legal contract drawn up in the EU that governs data transfers. Specifically, they are used to make sure any data transfer abides by the GDPR privacy laws, especially when transferring the data to a country that does not have the same level of privacy protection.

The ECJ’s decision is a big win for privacy advocates, and will no doubt put additional pressure on the US to adopt privacy regulation of its own.

July 17, 2020
AMD Takes On Intel Xeon With Threadripper Pro CPU

The hits keep on coming for Intel as AMD rolls out its Threadripper Pro CPU, aimed at taking on the Intel Xeon.

Intel’s Xeon processors are aimed at workstations and offer a number of advanced features not found in their consumer CPUs. In recent years, AMD has been making significant strides against Intel, as the latter has struggled to keep up with demand and move to 10nm processors.

In particular, AMD’s Ryzen line of CPUs have won almost universal praise, and further illustrated how far Intel has fallen. Now the company has released its Ryzen Threadripper, aimed at the same workstation market as the Xeon.

“AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO Processors are purpose-built to set the new industry standard for professional workstation compute performance,” said Saeid Moshkelani, senior vice president and general manager, AMD Client business unit. “The extreme performance, high core counts and bandwidth of AMD Ryzen Threadripper Processors are now available with AMD PRO technology features including seamless manageability and unique built-in data protection5. Even the most demanding professional environment is addressed with the new AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO line-up, from artists and creators developing breathtaking visual effects, to architects and engineers working with large datasets and complex visualizations, all brought to life on the most advanced professional workstation platform in the world6.”

AMD is launching the CPU in conjunction with Lenovo, who is offering the chip in the ThinkStation P620.

“Our customers need class-leading, innovative solutions to power through the most demanding applications,” said Rob Herman, General Manager, Workstation and Client AI Business Unit, Lenovo. “By leveraging the AMD Threadripper PRO Processors for our newest workstation, the ThinkStation P620, we can offer users the smarter solutions to create complex models, render photorealistic imagery or analyze geophysical and seismic interpretations, while offering crucial security and scalability features to ensure safe and effective operation for our professional users.”

This is great news for IT professionals, AMD and Lenovo. For Intel, this is just the latest in a string of bad news, including the loss of one of their leading chip designers and Apple moving to its own custom silicon.

July 14, 2020
The CIO Is Now Central To The Business Strategy

“The CIO now has become front and center and central to the business strategy,” says Aongus Hegarty, President of International Markets at Dell Technologies. “From the c-suite perspective, they are now seen as a key individual around investment in technology to enable the business from a growth and transformation point of view. There has been a fundamental change in the role of the CIO.”

Aongus Hegarty, President of International Markets at Dell Technologies, says that the CIO role is now core to the business strategy in the enterprise. Hegarty was interviewed by Tim Crawford, ranked as one of the most influential CIOs and is the CIO Strategic Advisor at AVOA:

The CIO Is Now Central To The Business Strategy

If you stand back and look at the CIO role I think it’s gone from being a role traditionally which was very much in the back office. The CIO was focused on keeping the systems working and maybe often only out in the c-suite discussions when there was a challenge or an issue with systems or email, etc. The CIO now has become front and center and central to the business strategy. From the c-suite perspective, they are now seen as a key individual around investment in technology to enable the business from a growth and transformation point of view. There has been fundamental change.

What’s driving the change is the recognition by CEOs, c-suite, and companies that technology is disrupting industries and disrupting businesses. It’s driving significant efficiency and operational enhancement and/or a brand new set of business models, products, and services enabled by technology. Companies need to quickly move forward around their digital transformation or they will be left behind or significantly disadvantaged quite quickly. There’s an urgency in the c-suite to bring the technology strategy front and center underpinning the business strategy.

The CIO: A Critical Role Now And Into The Future

The CIO within that c-suite is in an absolutely critical role now and into the future. The breadth of skills and competencies required has broadened significantly. Now the CIO role very much encompasses an individual who has vision and collaborates across the organization. The CIO has strong communication skills and ability and can work and navigate between obviously the tactical and executional elements of the role but also the strategic elements of the IT strategy. They they must match that and understand how it fits into the business strategy.

To all the CIOs out there I think it’s absolutely an exciting time and a great opportunity. You can be sure that Dell Technologies will be there every step of the way with you.

https://youtu.be/8SXISxJj7aI
The CIO Is Now Central To The Business Strategy

July 14, 2020
Apple Purchases Fleetsmith to Beef Up Device Management

Apple has acquired Fleetsmith, the creator of a device management solution that helps companies manage their Apple devices.

According to the company’s site, their solution “automates device setup, intelligence, patching, and security, for your company’s Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Apple TVs.”

In a blog post, co-founders Kenneth Kouot and Zack Blum, as well as Jesse Endahl write:

We’re thrilled to join Apple. Our shared values of putting the customer at the center of everything we do without sacrificing privacy and security, means we can truly meet our mission, delivering Fleetsmith to businesses and institutions of all sizes, around the world.

The acquisition will likely be a big help to Apple as their devices continue to gain popularity in the enterprise. Fleetsmith will give them a viable first-party device management option to offer customers.

June 25, 2020
Apple CEO: Mac Transitioning To Our Own Apple Silicon

“Today is going to be a truly historic day for the Mac,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook at their at the Worldwide Developers Conference. “Today we are going to tell you about some really big changes, how we are going to take the Mac to a whole new level. From the very beginning, the Mac redefined the entire computer industry. The Mac has always been about innovation and boldly pushing things forward, embracing big changes to stay at the forefront of personal computing.”

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, announced today that Apple is going exclusively with Apple created silicon chips to power the Mac. Cook spoke at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference earlier today:

The Mac has had three major transitions in its history. The move to PowerPC, the transition to macOS X, and the move to Intel. Now it’s time for a huge leap forward for the Mac. Today is the day that we are announcing that the Mac is transitioning to our own Apple Silicon. When we make bold changes it’s for one simple yet powerful reason… so we can make much better products. When we look ahead we envision some major new products and transitioning to our own custom silicon is what will enable us to bring them to life.

At Apple, integrating hardware and software is fundamental to everything we do. That’s what makes our products so great and silicon is at the heart of our hardware. So having a world class silicon design team is a game changer.

Apple CEO Tim Cook: Mac Transitioning To Our Own Apple Silicon

June 22, 2020
Digital Transformation Is More Important Than Ever, Says VMware CEO

“In this environment, digital transformation is more important than ever,” says VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger. “If you think of it only a few percentages of employees worked from home before this (pandemic). Now it’s 97 percent. Given the length and challenges that people faced this doesn’t go away.”

Pat Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, discusses how the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation and dramatically increased the work from home trend for enterprise companies:

Digital Transformation Is More Important Than Ever

In this environment, digital transformation is more important than ever. If you think of it only a few percentages of employees worked from home before this (pandemic). Now it’s 97 percent. Given the length and challenges that people faced this doesn’t go away. We are going to be here for the next two years where the majority of workforces, a substantial portion, are going to be work from home distributed workforce.

In the face of that IT and technology are more important not less. Sometimes it takes a decade to make a week of progress and sometimes a week gives you a decade of progress. All of a sudden, education, healthcare, and work from home are making huge steps forward. That’s what gives us the view that long-term tech is going to be stronger and software and cloud will be stronger yet than the overall economic environment.

Work From Home Is The New Normal

For VMWare, we were 20 percent work from home. I expect as we continue in this environment we will end up in at 50 to 60 percent over time. I don’t think we are atypical. We’re doubling and tripling the amount of work from home. When you think about that distributed workforce, essentially you go from 100 or 200 sites depending on the size of your company to 10,000 or 20,000 sites.

When you think about every home becoming a new worksite they need to be managed, connected, and productive. They need to be secure. They need good quality and bandwidth. Then they need capacity. That’s where VMWare cloud comes in. That’s our business continuity focus for the future.

We don’t see ourselves as atypical here. This is the new normal. We’re excited to see these transformations happening across the industry and we’re making good progress with customers around the globe.

Every CIO Is Adjusting Their Priorities

We used to generate new projects with POC’s and being face to face with customers. The salesmen always liked to shoulder up with the potential customer. We have to make adjustments. Every CIO is also adjusting their priorities due to this radical shift of a distributed workforce and the new demands that are being placed on them.

Digital Transformation Is More Important Than Ever, Says VMWare CEO Pat Gelsinger

May 29, 2020
Sophos Issues Hotfix For Firewall Zero-Day Being Actively Exploited

Sophos has issued a hotfix for its XG Firewall to patch a zero-day exploit that was being actively exploited by hackers.

According to Sophos, the firm was first made aware of the issue on April 22 by a customer who noticed “a suspicious field value visible in the management interface.” After investigating, Sophos determined the value was not a bug, but indicative of an attack against both physical and virtual XG Firewall units.

“The attack used a previously unknown pre-auth SQL injection vulnerability to gain access to exposed XG devices,” reads the security bulletin. “It was designed to exfiltrate XG Firewall-resident data. Customers with impacted firewalls should remediate to avoid the possibility that any data was compromised. The data exfiltrated for any impacted firewall includes all local usernames and hashed passwords of any local user accounts. For example, this includes local device admins, user portal accounts, and accounts used for remote access. Passwords associated with external authentication systems such as Active Directory (AD) or LDAP were not compromised.”

Because Sophos issued a hotfix for the vulnerability, a message should display on the XG management interface informing customers if their units were impacted. Uncompromised customers do not need to take any additional action, while compromised customers are encouraged to reset device administrator accounts, reboot the devices and reset passwords for local user accounts. If users had reused their XG passwords anywhere else, those should also be reset.

April 27, 2020
Zoom Pivots to Security Amid Ongoing Criticism

Zoom is taking drastic measures to improve its security and privacy amid criticism and scrutiny as it serves hundreds of millions of users.

As the pandemic sweeps the globe, individuals, corporations and organizations of all types are making drastic changes to their daily workflows and routines. Zoom has become an integral part of those routines, and hundreds of millions of users have begun to rely on the platform for school, work and socializing.

Unfortunately for the company, the increased usage has also brought increased scrutiny, especially in the realm of privacy and security. The company has been called to task for not using end-to-end encryption, as its marketing claims; for leaking email addresses; for sending data to Facebook without informing users, before finally removing the offending SDK; and for a rash of Zoom-bombing incidents where outside individuals gain access to a Zoom meeting and make a nuisance of themselves.

In view of these challenges, Zoom is taking drastic action to beef up its security and privacy. In a blog post on the company’s site, founder and CEO Eric Yuan said the company is enacting a freeze for 90 days in order to shift all “engineering resources to focus on our biggest trust, safety, and privacy issues.”

The company also plans to conduct a comprehensive review with third-party experts and release a transparency report. It will also enhance its bug bounty program, and engage in a number of white box penetration tests. Zoom has also improved its privacy policy, apologized for not handling its encryption issues clearly and tried to help individuals address Zoom-bombing.

In short, the company is pulling out all the stops in an effort to improve its privacy and security, no small task given how quickly the platform has grown.

“To put this growth in context, as of the end of December last year, the maximum number of daily meeting participants, both free and paid, conducted on Zoom was approximately 10 million,” writes Yuan. “In March this year, we reached more than 200 million daily meeting participants, both free and paid.”

As we said in a previous article, “the increased scrutiny of Zoom is a good reminder to companies that privacy and security should never be an afterthought. Instead, they should be a core feature, built in to an app or service from day one.”

That statement remains true—security and privacy should never be an afterthought. At the same time, it’s time to give credit where credit is due: Zoom is stepping up to the plate and doing everything possible to provide its users with the privacy and security they expect and deserve.

April 3, 2020
Digital Transformation: The Conversation Has Shifted, Says ServiceNow CEO

“We’re done with talking about if it is a good idea to digitally transform,” says ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott. “Now the conversation has shifted to how quickly can you get me there. I have to get there really fast. My prediction is that companies that are digital, that can lead this digital transformation revolution, will prosper through this time because there are so many public sector and private sector entities that must change. I do believe we will be going into a totally new normal.”

Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow, discusses how COVID-19 has forced CEOs to speed up digital transformation in order to compete and win. McDermott says that businesses have to have an all-weather workforce to win.”

We’re Done With Talking About If It’s a Good Idea

When we came out of the financial crisis in 2008 that is when cloud computing hit a new gear. That’s when it became the pervasive computing theme of the 21st century. The elasticity of the cloud, the ability to build applications very quickly on a platform like ServiceNow’s⎯so you can be in service, in service to employees, in service to customers, and in service to keeping the operation going, even through difficult times. if you think about digital transformation, it’s a $7.4 trillion addressable market in the next four years.

I talk to CEOs and heads of state every day. We’re done with talking about if it is a good idea to digitally transform. Now the conversation has shifted to how quickly can you get me there. I have to get there really fast. My prediction is that companies that are digital, that can lead this digital transformation revolution, will prosper through this time because there are so many public sector and private sector entities that must change. I do believe we will be going into a totally new normal. It’s not dissimilar to 2008. We’re going to have to figure out whether it’s three weeks from now or three months from now.

A Totally New Way To Work

How are you going to get back to work? Business continuity must contain. Think about all the processes that will have to change. I like to think of this as a physical distancing, not a social distancing because our processes on Zoom every day has us connected to the management team and the people throughout our company. So while we are physically distant we have socially kept the conversation going. We’re continuing to pursue our goals because that’s what the world needs from ServiceNow.

Customers right now are basically saying, how do I take care of my people? For example, I’ve heard from some very outstanding CEO saying we’re going to keep hiring or am certainly not going to lay people off. How do we get the tools for people to do the job remotely? How do we make that happen? How do we make sure we’re caring for the people? How do we align them with the goals and the orientations of the company? How do we keep compliance and security at a high level even as they work from places like home or studio environments where they’re not used to working? All of this has to be done utilizing a digital platform, a totally new way of working.

What About the Customer?

Here’s a really big thing. In the beginning, everybody was saying we’re going to work from home. We will close down operations and that was basically it. What about the customer? What we’re learning about the customer is right now they’re not really interested in you upselling them and cross-selling them in an engagement layer of CRM. What they are interested in is business continuity. How will you service me even as we’re in the midst of a crisis?

This idea of service management, of making sure you get the right assets in front of the right problems where you can resolve issues for customers⎯especially since they’re no longer working in their offices for the most part. It has really reoriented the workflow of companies all over the world and it’s happened really quickly.

Over 43 percent of the companies today actually don’t even have a work from home policy. Think about that. Now, after this crisis, I can assure you they’ll need one and the boards of directors will expect that they have one. If you remember the post 9/11 era, it was unbelievable to think that people would be standing in line to get x-rayed with their luggage before getting on a flight.

Digital Transformation Has To Go Faster

As they think about this new environment just think about the procedures and the protocols that we have to now impart on the workforce to make sure that they’re healthy when they come into these buildings and they actually go to work. We will actually have to have quick analysis. For example, you could do an ear temperature check to make sure someone’s temperature isn’t high when they’re coming into the workplace to keep people safe. That’s a protocol, that’s a new process, and I expect that things like that will definitely happen.

I also expect that workers will work more from home, that people will be more agile and flexible in how they work, and the tools and the platforms of digital have to be enabled to make that happen, So here it is, people that are digitally transforming now, you have got to go faster. People that haven’t actually embarked upon this journey, you need to do it now. Now is when your people will expect you to build a culture that enables them to prosper in any working environment. I have to believe we’re in a new norm. If it’s not COVID-19 it’s going to be something else. Workforces have to be prepared to handle anything. We have to be an all-weather workforce to win.

Digital Transformation: The Conversation Has Shifted – ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott

March 26, 2020
HPE Warns Firmware Bug Will Brick SSDs Without Update

For the second time in two years, HPE is warning of a firmware bug in its SSD drives that will brick them unless an update is applied.

In a support advisory, HPE details the issue involving HPE SAS SSDs running firmware older than HPD7. Those drives running the earlier firmware will completely fail once they reach 40,000 hours of operation.

“IMPORTANT: This HPD7 firmware is considered a critical fix and is required to address the issue detailed below,” reads the advisory. “HPE strongly recommends immediate application of this critical fix. Neglecting to update to SSD Firmware Version HPD7 will result in drive failure and data loss at 40,000 hours of operation and require restoration of data from backup if there is no fault tolerance, such as RAID 0 or even in a fault tolerance RAID mode if more SSDs fail than can be supported by the fault tolerance of the RAID mode on the logical drive. Example: RAID 5 logical drive with two failed SSDs.”

HPE says it was “notified by a Solid State Drive (SSD) manufacturer of a firmware defect affecting certain SAS SSD models” that were used in HPE server and Storage products. The company also makes it clear that, because the failure only occurs after “40,000 hours of operation and based on the dates these drives began shipping from HPE, these drives are NOT susceptible to failure until October 2020 at the earliest.”

Even so, IT professionals should begin upgrading the firmware on impacted drives as soon as possible to ensure no data loss when the 40,000 hour threshold is crossed.

March 25, 2020
Shadowserver, Protector of the Internet, Needs Help

Shadowserver is a non-profit many have never heard of, yet it plays a vital role in protecting the internet. Now it needs helps to survive.

The Shadowserver Foundation was started in 2004 and serves as one of the preeminent sources of information for internet security professionals. The foundation scans the entire internet multiple times a day; creates activity reports for vetted subscribers and law enforcement; and keeps a massive database of malware for researchers to study.

Despite the foundation’s important work, in an announcement on the website, Shadowserver says it “urgently needs your financial support, to help quickly move our data center to a new location and continue being able to operate our public benefit services.”

Shadowserver strikes an optimistic tone, confident it will receive the help it needs.

“We are confident that, with the help of our sponsors, constituents and the community, The Shadowserver Foundation can continue this important fight and serve you all even more effectively, for many years to come. We need to ensure that victims of cybercrime continue to be protected, and the cybercriminals do not win. We look forward to working together with you all to find the right solution for everyone.”

There are few companies that do more to protect the internet than Shadowserver, meaning saving it is a worthwhile goal. Individuals interested in becoming sponsors can do so here.

March 18, 2020
Slack Helping Companies With Historic (Coronavirus) Shift To Remote Work

“Happy Friday the 13th,” says Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield in referencing the coronavirus impact on the stock market. “There are a lot of people who are moving to a remote work or work-from-home situation for the first time. A lot of executives who are struggling to figure out how to manage and maintain operational performance in this kind of environment. They have a lot of questions and a lot of uncertainty. We’ve seen a surge in new teams created and people checking out Slack for the first time.”

Stewart Butterfield, CEO of Slack, discusses on CNBC the historic move to remote work by organisations large and small in response to the coronavirus. Butterfield says that this may have a lingering impact on businesses opting for more remote options and with up-leveling communications:

Slack Coronavirus Response: “This Is Our Moment To Help”

Happy Friday the 13th from the first growth company CEO to have to report into what was a pretty apocalyptic day on the markets. We’re seeing a lot from all different kinds of customers. We have 110,000 customers, SMEs, large enterprise, government, academic, and nonprofit. There are a lot of people who are moving to a remote work or work from home situation for the first time. A lot of executives who are struggling to figure out how to manage and maintain operational performance in this kind of environment. They have a lot of questions and a lot of uncertainty.

The reaction inside the company has been really fantastic. A lot of energy. I think the employees feel like this is our moment to help. We have a great collection of resources at Slack (Slack Remote). We’ve also scaled up a program to give people one-on-one consultations. Our customer success teams are very active with the enterprise customers. We’re running webinars and giving training. In some sense Slack was built for this. Not specifically for remote work but for up-leveling communications and communications is foundational to that way that business operates. In an environment where you’re suddenly making this transition it’s more important than ever.

The Crisis Will Have Some Permanent Impact On Business

I think it will (coronavirus crisis) definitely have some permanent impact. From where we sit today there’s not a lot of visibility into the future. You think about just what it felt like yesterday compared to Wednesday with moments like the Tom Hanks or NBA thing where suddenly the psychology really seems to shift. People start to have a different kind of perception of what the next couple of weeks are going to look like. So looking too far ahead I think is difficult. This will be a lingering factor and have a lasting impact for most organizations.

I got an email from a CTO last week who had just signed a huge contract with Slack, one of the biggest asset managers in the world. What he said is like hey, just letting you know, we just signed but this is the last PO we will sign before the doors kind of shut. I think you’ll see some clamping down on spending. At the same time we’ve seen a real surge in interest both from existing customers and from new customers. We’ve seen a surge in new teams created and people checking out Slack for the first time. It’s really hard to balance those two.

We feel great about (our competition with Microsoft Teams). Microsoft Teams has been out for three years now and enough time has passed. I think that’s the reception that we got on it from the analysts last night. This is our third quarter result report as a public company. One of the wins that were proudest of in the last quarter was with Veterans Affairs going to 20,000 users. They run the biggest integrated healthcare system in the United States. You think about the pressure that they’re going to be under with a lot of elderly patients and managing through that kind of crisis. This is in an environment where you’re having people work from home in an environment that’s so dynamic.

Leaders Need To Drive Alignment and Agility

I think about my own experience. Stuff is changing every day. We have 1,300 employees in San Francisco. Just last night school districts said that they’re shutting down all the schools. So people who are already in a situation where they were battling over kitchen table space with their spouse when they’re both working from home and now they are going to have two or three kids in the house as well. That’s not an easy situation to manage.

Meanwhile the disruptions of supply chains to the SMEs, restaurants shutting down, travel, that’s going to have downstream impact. It’s such a dynamic environment. Anything that leaders can do and employees can do to help drive kind of alignment and ultimately agility, because they’re in this kind of environment you need to be agile and you need to be responsive.

Slack Helping Companies With Historic (Coronavirus) Shift To Remote Work

March 13, 2020
AWS Using Bottlerocket Linux For Container Hosting

AWS has revealed that Bottlerocket Linux is the operating system (OS) it is using for container hosting.

Containers are packages containing all the apps, code, libraries and dependencies necessary to run. Containers can be easily moved from one host to another, without worrying about the underlying OS and environment. Containers can also be managed to prevent any one app or process from hogging a system’s resources, making them the ideal way to scale cloud, hosting and IT systems.

Bottlerocket is a new Linux distribution that AWS designed and optimized specifically to work with containers.

“Bottlerocket reflects much of what we have learned over the years,” writes Jeff Barr, Chief Evangelist for AWS. “It includes only the packages that are needed to make it a great container host, and integrates with existing container orchestrators. It supports Docker image and images that conform to the Open Container Initiative (OCI) image format.

“Instead of a package update system, Bottlerocket uses a simple, image-based model that allows for a rapid & complete rollback if necessary. This removes opportunities for conflicts and breakage, and makes it easier for you to apply fleet-wide updates with confidence using orchestrators such as EKS.

“In addition to the minimal package set, Bottlerocket uses a file system that is primarily read-only, and that is integrity-checked at boot time via dm-verity. SSH access is discouraged, and is available only as part of a separate admin container that you can enable on an as-needed basis and then use for troubleshooting purposes.”

AWS is launching a public preview of the OS and inviting others to try it.

March 12, 2020