CIO.com announced its annual 2012 winners  – 100 companies – all of whom are leveraging IT for big wins within their industry. Interestingly, these winners each have in common how they are leveraging technology to improve the customer experience, which is ultimately driving revenue and lowering costs. Here’s a sample: More...

As any Star Trek fan knows, getting crew members and supplies from one place to another is as easy as using a “transporter beam.” While it still might seem like science fiction to fans and non-fans alike, most of us will start to see enterprises (the lower case kind) “beaming” physical products and replacement parts to their customers through wide area networks within our lifetime. More...

There is interest across most industries in hosted Unified Communications, but it is interesting that we at Cisco, as we work with Sprint in implementing these solutions, are seeing spikes of interest in certain vertical markets and sectors.

There is a high degree of interest in financial services and insurance, all professional services, manufacturing and packaged goods, and in every area of the public sector. Why these markets more than others? We think the answer is in a few key business and competitive pressures that seem to be more intense in these areas. Interest and activity will remain high here, while other verticals are quickly following this market transition. More...

Looking at the as-a-service smorgasbord, can you guess which one tops the list in terms of growth? Number one is Business Intelligence (and Analytics) as-a-Service (BIaaS).

BIaaS can trace its roots to "Big Data." Companies are striving to make sense of the ever-growing amounts of data – be it from sources such as company databases, CRM tools, and social media. Already a $12 billion market, says Gartner, business intelligence (BI) and analytics is big business – whether premises-based or in the cloud. More...

Cloud computing is becoming ubiquitous. However, to truly leverage the cost and efficiency advantages of cloud computing, it requires a robust, reliable and secure network and service provider that can deliver a single-point of contact able to meet the evolving IT needs of mid-sized and larger companies. That's why the recently announced Sprint-CSC Infrastructure-as-a-Service partnership is so important.

A newly announced partnership between Sprint and Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) enables Sprint to offer a unique set of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions to business customers. More...

Wouldn’t we all like to be a hero? All that admiration and acclaim, the satisfaction of knowing we really accomplished something bold and daring. Not to mention what a great resume enhancer heroism can be.

While we’re dreaming, why not just make the leap to superhero? We all have a favorite superhero (I’ve always been partial to capes), and just imagine what we could accomplish in our work lives with superpowers. Cooling the data center with your breath could be a huge energy saver, for instance, and probably would at least earn you Employee of the Month honors and a reserved parking space. More...

The BYOD revolution isn’t slowing down, so it’s no longer a question of will we or won’t we. It’s a question of how do we deal with it and make it a positive development in the workplace.

Not to worry. Sprint has arrived with a solution, BYOD Management, the latest entry in our stable of Professional Mobility Services. More...

Recently I told you about a positive cloud report from IDC Government Insights. The week this report was issued, a high profile technology professional came out that same time and "dissed" the cloud.

As reported by CNET, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak clearly isn't a fan. He used terms such as "horrendous" to describe the future of storing data in the cloud, and predicted "a lot of horrible problems in the next five years." More...

Gartner and Forbes recently completed a survey showing that more and more boards of directors are acknowledging the strategic importance of IT. This is good news, because far too often, companies assume IT decisions are tactical, rarely warranting the attention of executives who chart corporate strategy. Such a conclusion would be erroneous because it would be akin to saying the use of electricity (or coal, or steel, or labor) is merely tactical. While many aspects of how, what, why, and when in terms of specific “factors of production” might be tactical, whether to use any given factor of production per se is clearly strategic. So too it is with certain IT decisions. More...

The cloud got some thumbs-ups ... and a thumbs-down ... in a couple of recent news items. Because we accentuate the positive here, we'll focus on the good news today and address the other news in my next post.

According to a new report from IDC Government Insights,  government agencies are opening their eyes to the possibilities that the cloud offers. They may not be doing an awful lot in the cloud yet, but they're at least thinking about it. More...