Akamai has created a partnership with Riverbed Networks to improve the delivery of enterprise applications over both public and private networks, giving Akamai a foothold in the enterprise market as cloud computing heats up. It’s a response to the changes wrought by a more connected world. Read more »
Gone are the days when P2P was more or less synonymous with file sharing. Now you can offer up just about anything you can think of for sale, rent or trade directly to interested individuals. But P2P will also reshape how business operates inside and out. Read more »
While car sharing company Zipcar had a smash hit debut on the Nasdaq last month, how big of a market car sharing will become is still unclear — particularly to rental giant Enterprise. Read more »
Yahoo Mail is down for a sizable chunk of users and the company is working to fix the outage. This is another black mark against the company, which has seen its revenue slide, is selling off beloved web properties and is generally struggling to remain relevant. Read more »
Spiceworks has raised a $25 million fourth round of funding from Adams Capital and Tenaya Capital to continue building out a community of IT professionals that use the Spiceworks software to monitor their companies’ networks. That community is like a Facebook for IT. Read more »
A new report indicates that 8.8 million tablets are now in use at small and medium businesses in the U.S. The majority are surely Apple iPads, given that competing devices are just now appearing. Three new Android features for enterprise from Google could help Android adoption. Read more »
Business and IT leaders now face significant opportunities and challenges with big data — that is data sets that are so large they are difficult to store, manage and analyze. This report explores the rapidly evolving big data business and technology ecosystem. It examines big data in the context of several different industries: financial services, health care, sports, travel and media. We explore the different big data technologies — from Hadoop and NoSQL derivatives to cloud-based collaboration tools — and their various benefits for enterprises. And we examine some of the existing challenges big data poses, and what enterprise IT leaders can do to overcome them. Companies mentioned in this report include Amazon Web Services, Google, Teradata, IBM and Cloudera. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Most business users have simply had enough of dealing with outdated equipment supplied by slow-to-act IT departments, and for a very affordable price, are starting to fund their own IT revolution by bringing their new iPads to the workplace. Here’s how you can do the same. Read more »
The enterprise collaboration space has entered an exciting new phase of collaboration. New software and applications are coming to market, as are new concepts for how to work and communicate in the knowledge age. From consumer-grade apps like those from Box.net and Huddle to software from long-established players like Microsoft and Oracle, these tools are taking collaboration technology past the traditional IT decision-making process and changing the way we approach the workday. Additional companies in this report include Skype, Huddle, Jive, Moxie and Yammer. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
While millions of people interact daily in public-facing social media channels, there are a growing number of internal social media solutions for the enterprise, becoming modern-day intranets. But do these systems work? And why might trying to bring social tools inside your gated corporate walls fail? Read more »
Salesforce bought social productivity app maker Manymoon today in another push toward social collaboration. The acquisition gives Salesforce the top app in Google’s Apps Marketplace and a popular product for businesses looking to enhance existing tools for better collaboration and sharing. Read more »
Android may have done much in the past year to catch up to, or even surpass Apple’s presence in many smartphone markets, but the enterprise is one key area where Apple’s mobile OS still has a strong lead, thanks largely to the iPad. Read more »
When you work with a virtual team, good Internet access is crucial. One person with a spotty connection can slow down the whole group. This issue is becoming a growing concern as companies hire employees around the world; Internet access isn’t consistent in every country. Read more »
There have been a number of recent productivity apps to help individuals track where their time goes. TimeDoctor offers to do the same thing for companies, including those with remote teams, by tracking the time that remote employees spend on different tasks. Read more »
The always-unpredictable mobile space enters 2011 at a particularly dynamic time. Carriers are now bringing 4G networks online, even as their definitions of “4G” vary. Meanwhile, mobile data consumption is exploding and the FCC trying to settle on policies both to regulate the industry and to ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
You can’t innovate without collaboration, and without innovation, companies fail. There is now a whole new world of collaboration tools available to enable what can best be termed “high-impact collaboration.” These break-through tools — workspaces like Box.net, Huddle and Central Desktop or customer-powered support communities like Get Satisfaction — are made possible through the convergence of cloud computing, social software and the ubiquity of mobile technology. With these new technologies, employees can channel their passions and work together more effectively — regardless of where people are located — to accomplish their mission. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Facebook, Apple, Twitter, LiveOps and Microsoft. 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 is doing well among enterprise customers, and for good reason. It facilitates the interaction of businesses and clients. Two new use cases show that, regardless of what you’re using for internal communications, the iPad is where it’s at for client-focused technological initiatives. Read more »
n most large organizations, email is the communication tool of choice. It provides a virtual “paper trail,” doesn’t require the recipient to pick up the phone and is accessible in most places. For some organizations, though, that reliance on email can be problematic. Read more »
More and more, open source search looks to be a viable alternative for organizing unstructured data in the enterprise. The open source community believes it has advantages in scalability, flexibility and speed over enterprise-specific behemoths like Autonomy and Microsoft. But more importantly the functionality, cost structure ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The enterprise is all over the iPad. RIM can’t put the genie back in the bottle, no matter how hard it tries. But what is it about the iPad that appeals to IT departments and employees alike? Why the sudden shocking proliferation? Read more »
During the last Apple conference call, Steve Jobs crowed about Apple’s growing enterprise presence. A new report illustrates just how well iOS is doing in business; 4,000 new iPads and iPhones are ready to be put to use at a major pharmaceutical company, the report says. Read more »
As more enterprises consider cloud-based infrastructure, a key question for them is if the cloud can scale to support core operations and services. Those interested in better understanding the market are invited to join GigaOM Pro and Limelight Networks for a free, one-hour webinar next month. Read more »
RIM recently announced the PlayBook, a 7-inch BlackBerry tablet clearly aimed at business professionals, but is it a case of too little, too late? Has Apple’s introduction of the iPad secured it entry into the enterprise market and helped usher in the iPhone, too? Read more »
The Apple TV is facing stiff competition from Google TV and others, like Roku, for consumer dollars. But is that really where it stands to gain the most? The blue screens of death we see all too often in retail displays say otherwise. Read more »
One of the hidden benefits of social networking is the type of collaboration it allows. Where some mediums formalize the collaborative process, social networking allows it to remain organic. Saba Live is a collaboration tool that was designed with that social networking approach in mind; i Read more »
MangoSpring has been working on the problem of enterprise-level collaboration since 2007 with its flagship tool, MangoTalk. With the 2.0 release of its collaboration suite MangoApps, MangoSpring has stepped up to a new level of integration, which makes the suite a robust choice for an businesses Read more »
There are plenty of chat tools out there, but using one that is purely meant for internal business communication has its benefits — at least, your team won’t be distracted by friends and family. HipChat is a group chat tool built specifically with companies in mind. Read more »
The promise of a completely open-source enterprise is near, but the nagging question remains: Will it work as a business for the technology industry? On Sept. 29, about 75 entrepreneurs, executives and investors will gather at the GigaOM San Francisco offices to discuss that very question. Read more »
When choosing the tools your organization relies on, there are many issues to consider. But one is easy to overlook: communication. After all, your team probably has plenty of communication tools already at its disposal. But a variety of communication tools can actually be a problem. Read more »
Tools like ActiveCollab or web2Project require you (or your IT team) to set them up on a server, but once you’ve got everything installed, your team members can access your tools from anywhere. The question is whether self-hosted tools are the right choice for your organization. Read more »
Technology and organizational trends are driving the demand for apps in the enterprise, and there is no better time than now to consider an enterprise mobility strategy that co-opts consumerization. In this report, the second in a two-part series, we examine a new category of transient and persistent lightweight apps that will number in the thousands and run across the range of corporate and Bring-Your-Own devices, creating new opportunity IT can seize to make “Workplace 2.0” a reality. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The just released the annual 2010 Open Source Management Survey found that open source is seen to be easier to deploy than previously, IT professionals are articulating a preference for open source., and no longer focusing on whether it’s open source or proprietary Read more »
Today’s end-users are very vocal about the freedom they experience with their iPhones as consumers versus the frustration they feel in the workplace with limited device choices and a lack of apps. This research brief (the first in a two-part series) addresses the issue of how consumers can connect personal mobile devices to the enterprise, and also looks at how IT can play a pivotal role in harvesting such a capability. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
When Google launched Wave last year, it was immediately obvious that it would be useful for collaboration. What was less obvious was whether it would be a good choice for enterprise-level collaboration. Wave is simplistic; when it comes to managing projects, bells and whistles are reassuring. Read more »
A collaboration tool that doesn’t allow you to work on all of these projects separately isn’t going to be able to keep up with your company. Glasscubes has solved the division problem by producing a collaboration tool that’s built around workspaces. Read more »
The collaboration market has grown rapidly over the past few years, with many companies trying to grab a slice of an ever-expanding pie. The result of this healthy competition is that can make the task of picking the right tool(s) a tricky prospect. Read more »
Google’s new App Inventor could create a wave of new apps to serve as vehicles for mobile advertisements. But with Android Market already developing a Wal-Mart-like reputation, the new do-it-yourself developer kit needs to produce apps people really use — and ones advertisers will really pay ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
With the growing recognition that global warming demands a business response, many companies are budgeting for climate-change plans. These plans aim to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions across a wide range of activities, including procurement, manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, retailing, IT, waste disposal, and regulatory compliance. In drawing up and implementing these plans, though, businesses have made an unexpected discovery: The shift to greener operations creates competitive advantages by cutting costs, preparing for regulation of carbon emissions and presenting an attractively green ethos to the market. Sustainable business, it turns out, is good business.
To help implement their plans, companies can choose from a variety of enterprise sustainability software, also known as carbon management software, delivered via a Web browser in the form of Software as a Service. These systems collect resource-consumption data distributed geographically and functionally across the enterprise including electricity metering, transportation fuel costs and emissions from manufacturing and production facilities. The objective is to bring this data into one place where it can be examined and analyzed comprehensively.
Sustainability software covers three broad areas. One category is aimed at IT and helps manage energy consumption in data centers. A second category monitors and analyzes the flow of electricity in smart-grid installations. The third helps enterprises manage resources, emissions and waste. It collects data and offers visualization tools. The most advanced systems offer sophisticated modeling capabilities, which can aid greatly in formulating and implementing strategies for reducing an enterprise’s environmental footprint.
This third category is the subject of this report. While the green IT and smart-grid categories are relatively mature, the enterprise market is still taking shape. Moreover, this area has potential to become the largest by far. While the traditional market for sustainability software consists of Fortune 500 companies, smaller operations are beginning to recognize the benefits. Sustainability software will become attractive to businesses of all sizes and sectors as industries develop standards for tracking, evaluating, and reporting greenhouse gas emissions and as government regulations spur trade in carbon credits and environmental labeling of consumer products.
This report surveys the history of enterprise sustainability software systems, their capabilities, and how they’re being used in a variety of industries. It also offers recommendations for companies interested in using these tools. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Google Buzz — Google’s belated attempt to make Gmail social and sharing relevant — is a neat product, but it’s true value isn’t for consumers; it’s for enterprise customers of Google ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
I put myself squarely in the “Working Mac User” category. My MacBook sees daily use in an Enterprise. I freelance write about the Mac and use mine in school. Outside of web surfing and the occasional game, very little of my time at the keyboard is […] Read more »
