by Aurelien Parment | Sep 16, 2015 | Small Business, Tech News
Productivity geeks can now rejoice with recent leaked documents from Microsoft indicating the launch of Office 2016 on September 22.
Microsoft considers the update to be incremental, but there are substantial changes. From a visual perspective, styling between Windows, OS X, and mobile apps will be more consistent as each application receives a boldly titled color bar reflecting the icon color. End users will also experience improved collaborative editing, rights management, and data analysis capabilities.
Enterprise clients will be able to move on from the E4 plan with Office 2016 with the introduction of Office E5. The new E5 offers a new cloud-based PBX capability, enabling businesses to use Office 365 for all their IT and infrastructure needs. This will allow businesses to move more of their infrastructure and productivity services to the cloud, while also taking advantage of upgraded data analytics and security capabilities.
If you’re a business owner thinking about an upgrade, there’s a lot to be excited about. We combed through some of the new features so you didn’t have to. Check them out:
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by Aurelien Parment | Sep 11, 2015 | Tech News
Adblock Plus Finally Lands On iOS And In Google Play — As A Browser App
Natasha Lomas
“Popular desktop ad-blocking software Adblock Plus, which has some 50 million+ monthly active users worldwide, has finally launched an iOS app. It’s also managed to convince Google to allow its ad-blocking browser for Android back in the Play Store, noting that this is the first time since March 2013 it’s been allowed in the Google-controlled Android app store.
Speaking to TechCrunch back in July, ABP’s head of ops, Ben Williams, said the company was planning to launch an Adblock Plus browser for iOS in “early fall/late summer”. So they’re spot on in their timing.”
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by Aurelien Parment | Sep 4, 2015 | Tech News
VMware public cloud gets vCloud Air SQL, Site Recovery Manager Air, object storage
Jordan Novet
“VMware today announced several enhancements to its vCloud Air public cloud at the company’s annual VMworld conference in San Francisco.
Companies can test and run plans for disaster recovery in vCloud Air’s new cloud-based Site Recovery Manager Air. And VMware is starting to offer disaster recovery on vCloud Air based on usage, instead of just as part of a monthly or yearly subscription.”
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by Aurelien Parment | Aug 28, 2015 | Tech News
Dell Forms New Line of Business for Web Hosts, Telecommunications Service Providers
Nicole Henderson
“Dell will introduce products later this fall targeted towards a number of organizations including hosting providers, under a new line of business it launched on Monday. Called Datacenter Scalable Solutions (DSS), the division will be within its Enterprise Solutions organization and will address the market of business that is just below the hyperscale space in size.
Dell said that this segment is growing three times faster than the traditional x86 server market, and that these types of businesses, including telecommunication companies, hosting providers, oil and gas and research organizations, require “semi-custom solutions.” Dell DSS will new design new systems for this market, while also offering supply chain optimizations and custom configurations.”
Microsoft’s DisplayCover prototype gives the Surface keyboard an e-ink display
Ian Paul
“Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 has gone a long way to creating a tablet that can truly replace a laptop. Now that the core device itself is so darn slick, Microsoft’s Applied Sciences research and development team is getting funky, revealing a new mobile keyboard concept that adds more screen space to the Surface via a multi-touch e-ink display.
Currently dubbed the DisplayCover, the new keyboard includes an e-ink display at the very top that displays menu options based on context. The basic idea is for the e-ink display to extend the desktop space by removing the taskbar or menu items from the tablet’s smaller screen.”
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by Aurelien Parment | Aug 25, 2015 | Small Business, Tech News
Workplaces are more mobile and interconnected than ever, as many employees have the opportunity to work remotely. For many companies, this can be enough to enable the creation of a “bring your own device” policy, or BYOD.
Research firm Gartner reports that 90% of organizations will support some form of a BYOD program by 2017 and for personal devices to double enterprise-owned devices by 2018. Furthermore, Gartner also reports that implementing a BYOD program can also lead to 64% cost-savings, since the end-user will own the device.
Financially-savvy organizations will discover that these numbers make a BYOD program an attractive option. However, incorrect BYOD implementations could also lead to major IT headaches and security issues. Today, we share some considerations all IT administrators should consider before diving headfirst into their BYOD program.
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by Aurelien Parment | Aug 21, 2015 | Tech News
Oracle updates Service Cloud, Social Cloud so companies can analyze customer comments
Caroline Wall
“Tech giant Oracle rolled out Monday new features for its Service Cloud and Social Cloud – all with the intention of creating a better way for companies to harness customer data and feedback via social channels.
Service Cloud now has Community Self-Service, which means customers of a particular company can ask questions and receive answers from peers, all while having those conversations take place under the watchful eye of the company. Oracle said this also helps prevent an overload of questions directed at company contact centers since customers may help each other.”
End of U.S. oversight of Internet’s domain name overseer delayed to next year
John Ribeiro
“U.S. oversight of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the coordinator of the Internet’s domain name system, will continue through September next year and perhaps even beyond.
The Internet global multi-stakeholder community needs time to complete its work, have the plan reviewed by the U.S. government and then put it into action if approved, the U.S. Department of Commerce said Monday.”
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