Social media is playing an increasing role in enterprise IT, with companies like Jive Software and Telligent jockeying with IBM, Microsoft and Cisco to tap into corporate IT spending. Today, they build social platforms customers use for both employee collaboration and consumer marketing objectives. Vendors need ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Apple is making big strides in the enterprise, thanks in large part to the success of its mobile devices. More than the devices themselves, the cool factor surrounding Apple could be its key to growing enterprise presence, according to a growing number of experts. Read more »
Despite OpenStack’s continued growth, a combination of product updates and acquisitions from Citrix, Eucalyptus, Red Hat and VMware over the past week demonstrate that the race to become the dominant private cloud provider, as well as win over the enterprise, is far from over. Is one of ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The impact of digital technology has shattered long-established monopolies and ways of making money in the newspaper publishing industry. Today, publishers must find ways to subsidize content-creation costs directly, and this report examines a few different approaches, from more flexible paywalls to charging users directly for access and mimicking the business models of other industries, such as online gaming. Companies mentioned in this report include Ford, Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
One of the things social media marketing will need if it’s going to live up to its aggressive $5 billion spending forecast is more differentiation between marketing and collaboration platforms. Companies like Jive Software, Lithium, Mzinga and Telligent offer social network platforms aimed at both employees ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Hewlett-Packard plans to spend some $10.25 billion to acquire Autonomy, the United Kingdom–based software and services company. HP’s balance sheet currently has $13 billion in cash. Why is the company making such a big bet? According to HP’s CEO, Leo Apotheker, it’s now or never. Read more »
Google’s acquisition of Motorola was largely a defensive move to protect itself from the patent-litigation feeding frenzy. But it also provides an opportunity for Google to increase Android’s presence in a tablet market that is currently dominated by ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Proving that virtual currency can be worth a good amount of real-life cash, social stock market Empire Avenue has landed $1.2 million in funding. Empire Avenue serves a unique and somewhat controversial purpose: It’s a stock market that puts a price on people instead of companies. Read more »
What do Egypt’s former president and Lotus Notes have in common? Middle East dictators and enterprise software solutions do not, on the surface, appear to have a lot of shared characteristics, but there is a connection. They are both victims of the will of the people. Read more »
A Boston company called NetBlazr wants to offer businesses free access to a communal broadband network if a user pays for about $300 in equipment and then turns over the management of that gear to NetBlazr so it can continue building the network. Read more »
Apple is preparing to open five new retail stores internationally on Saturday, including one smack dab in the middle of competitor Research In Motion’s home territory of Waterloo, Ontario. It’s a departure from Apple’s usual pattern in Canada — one that sends a clear message. Read more »
Forget the division between structured and unstructured data. For the benefits of the big data era to reach businesses bottom lines or to change behaviors, companies will have to figure out how to bring the results of Hadoop analytics to HR and middle managers. Read more »
On Thursday Amazon announced three enhancements to its cloud computing offering. These include improvements to existing virtual private cloud and identity management solutions as well as a new option to directly connect enterprise networks to machines in Amazon’s Virginia data center, as Derrick Harris recounts and Amazon’s Jeff Barr ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Millennials — workers between the ages of 20 and 29 who grew up with ubiquitous cell phone and Internet availability — are now a dominant force in today’s enterprise. Is your company ready for them? This report, the second in a two-part series, examines the tensions ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
New York doesn’t have to rival Silicon Valley; it can be its own success story, with its own unique culture. And that is what the region should be looking at first, rather than trying to gain some bragging-rights parity with the San Francisco Bay Area. Read more »
Music streaming company TouchTunes is said to have secured $45 million in Series E funding at a $300 million valuation. Although those are some pretty impressive figures, the news is perhaps most notable for how it’s been made public — through an apparently accidental email address typo. Read more »
YuMe founder Jayant Kadambi is back in the CEO position at the video ad optimization company, according to sources. He replaces Michael Mathieu, who was brought in about three years ago to bring some sales expertise to the tech-heavy startup. Read more »
Comcast says it added 144,000 new broadband subscribers during the second quarter of 2011. Thanks to growing demand for higher-speed tiers, the company saw its revenues jump almost 10 percent to $2.2 billion for the quarter, thanks to 17.55 million broadband subscribers. Read more »
The iPad is leading the tablet charge in small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), resulting in a growth spurt that puts the Apple device out in front of nearly all other comers. I say nearly, because there’s still one device that sees even more activations: the iPhone. Read more »
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The effort to solve New York’s engineering talent crunch is coming to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in a major recruiting event hosted by Next Jump and the NYSE. The event will bring together 500 top East Coast engineering students and 50 companies. Read more »
With any startup, fast growth requires investment, starting first and foremost with good people. With that in mind, I’d like to welcome the newest member of the GigaOM Pro family, David Card, who will serve as the research director of GigaOM Pro Read more »
Web companies like Google and Facebook gain business advantage by analyzing large volumes of rapidly changing data about their users, but they are far from alone. A recent infographic from Get Satisfaction charts the volume of data stored in 17 key industry sectors, illustrating that most ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
IT managers now face a new challenge in the enterprise: the significant presence of a new generation, the Millennials, in today’s digital workplace. These young employees were born in the 1980s or later; they were raised with ever-present mobile phones and ubiquitous online access and social media, and they often demand access to those services and devices while at work. This report, the first in a two-part series, surveys Millennials about their use of technology at work, with a particular focus on how they communicate and learn and what they expect in regard to technology support. We aim to assist IT and tech-support management by pointing out the opportunities Millennials present and also the potential pitfalls. Companies mentioned in this report include Facebook, Google and Twitter. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The iPad for the first time is now being activated more often than Android smartphones, according to Good Technology. The enterprise software maker said the iPad accounted for 27.2 percent of all activations in the second quarter ahead of Android phones at 24.4 percent. Read more »
The efforts to convert corporations to the next-generation Internet addressing scheme are falling on deaf ears. According to Ovum, a mere 3 percent of web traffic is IPv6-enabled and enterprises either aren’t convinced of the need to switch, or think they already have. Read more »
A challenge of managing a virtual team is getting timely and thorough participation from team members. One way to ensure everyone has their say — or is at least given the opportunity to provide input — is to apply some principles of crowdsourcing to internal team communications. Read more »
For once, the biggest news in social media and real-time technologies didn’t come from Facebook. Rather, it was Google that, at the end of the second quarter, introduced an innovative collection of technologies, under the Google+ label. Another big headline was the return of digital music: Pandora filed a successful IPO, and Google and Apple unrolled cloud-based music offerings. Meanwhile, other social networks generated valuable lessons about technology and business strategies. LinkedIn went public, while Myspace was sold. And Apple essentially appointed Twitter its mobile social network infrastructure supplier. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Skype, Groupon, Turntable.fm and Amazon. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The town of Cornelius, Colo. has found that a new pilot program replacing paper with iPads is saving the administration money and time, helping the environment and increasing government transparency. It’s a good example of how the iPad could replace laptops for many organizations. Read more »
As mobile devices become more popular, it’s putting more importance on the need for security. That’s why Symantec recently analyzed Apple’s iOS and Google Android, comparing the two operating systems to each other and to desktop platforms in terms of vulnerability to security threats. Read more »
Mobile virtualization is hot topic today for businesses and consumers alike as enterprise employers keep their eye on security while employees just want a device that works for them, rather than one device for business and another for personal use. Read more »
Cloud computing has grown from a pie-in-the-sky vision to a major IT movement over the past few years. As its promise has grown, though, so too has its scope. This report covers six key sectors in cloud computing: commodity Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), enterprise IaaS, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), cloud storage and private clouds. We highlight the current state of each and provide informed insights into where they — and cloud computing in general — are headed. Much like any market in a still-evolving state, the infrastructure of the cloud-computing transition is still being built by startups, practitioners and even a big-name company or two. Companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Amazon, Nasuni, Terremark and Heroku. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Small- to mid-sized companies need the ability to edit, share and collaborate on files while keeping teams updated with the latest versions. Alfresco Team is an open-source, professional tool for content collaboration that offers enterprise-oriented social and security features not found in some Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products. Read more »
Tablets have gone mainstream, and now those devices — from the iPad to Research in Motion’s new PlayBook — are headed to the enterprise. This trend is largely driven by end users who prefer to bring their own devices to work, which is creating a fruitful marketplace for both hardware manufacturers and app developers. This report examines the current state of tablets in the enterprise, from use cases to market drivers, and analyzes which players will be worth watching in the coming months. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Apple, Google, Samsung and Nokia. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The iPad’s assault on the enterprise definitely appears to be a top-down phenomenon, according to a new report, with most users of one popular business app holding management positions. The report also suggests the iPad may be a means to extend the work week Read more »
While Groupon clones have saturated the consumer space, the enterprise sector has barely been tapped. GroupPrice offers daily deals for small business owners and is pursuing an agressive expansion strategy to be known as “Groupon for businesses.” Read more »
Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Skype is the largest the company has ever made, and it’s raised many questions in the process. This research note examines Skype’s overall value and where it fits strategically into the world of Microsoft. From Office 365 and Bing to Xbox Kinect and Windows Phone, there are numerous ways in which Microsoft can leverage the functionality of its newest addition — and numerous risks it could incur in the process. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Cisco, Panasonic and Google. For a full list of companies and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
In five short years, cloud computing has gone from being a quaint technology to a major catchphrase. Amazon and others are now moving at Internet speed, trying to offer better security, faster networking, more compliance and a host of other products that are attempting to meet the demands of startups, consumers and enterprises alike. On GigaOM’s Structure channel, we cover the gear and software that comprises the cloud, the services and the people who are changing the industry. Now for the first time, we’ve decided to condense that knowledge into the Structure 50, a list of the 50 companies that are influencing how the cloud and infrastructure evolves. All of these players, big or small, have people, technology or strategies that will help shape the way the cloud market is developing and where it will eventually end up. Companies mentioned in this report include Amazon, Rackspace, Cloudera, China Telecom and SeaMicro. For a full list of companies, and to see the Structure 50 as one full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
iOS may have been passed by Android once and for all in terms of device activations, but Apple is still winning in the enterprise market, according to Microsoft Exchange hosting provider Intermedia. The iPad is the biggest contributor to that ongoing success. Read more »
Chromebooks, according to Rajen Sheth, are like a house that remodels itself. With automatically updating software and web-based applications, the Chromebook helps reduce the need for hands-on IT departments — and reduce costs. Read more »
Panorama Software has announced the release of a socially-enabled business intelligence platform, Necto, to more effectively connect team members with company data. Think of Necto as way of putting reports and insights at the heart of a company’s social interactions. Read more »
