Category: Comments & opinions

I have the privilege of occasionally meeting with folks from our sales and marketing teams along with solutions engineers to discuss the sales cycle, past deals, or deals that are in the offing. As is often the case, there are many opinions on how deals should be examined, deconstructed and the opportunity positioned. You could think of it as a calculated gamble that you will do business but it can be a little less scientific and a little less of a matter of luck and more of a carefully constructed…

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Technically Incorrect: A new study suggests that holiday gatherings mean that millennials will use their phones strategically to avoid Uncle Bilbo. Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that’s taken over our lives. This is the time we declare our independence. We proclaim our individualism. We rail against those who would subjugate us. And we certainly aren’t going to talk to Uncle Bilbo and that peculiarly coiffed lover of his at a 4th of July party. In order to help us, we have our phones. I know…

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There is much friction on whether phones are easy to use (which they are) and being easy to configure (which they are not). The gap between perception and reality within voice services is driven by the amazing advances in digital technology. End-users, particularly those within enterprise environments, are witness to an astonishing array of configurability when it comes to interfaces. And almost any interface—or reporting system for that matter—that reaches back to touch a database can be adapted to the roles and responsibilities of those users. But most enterprise users…

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Travis Kalanick believes that great entrepreneurs all share one common trait: an ability to spot the difference between perception and reality. Kalanick, the CEO of ridesharing giant Uber, said people perceived that the taxi industry was the only way to quickly get a ride. He saw it differently.  “That distance between perception and reality is the innovator’s playground,” he said to an audience of some 700 entrepreneurs at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit at Stanford University on Thursday. “You have to get used to people telling you are crazy and things are…

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A look at how air quality tech is helping people lead healthier lives. We breathe in, we breathe out. It’s as certain as the sun rising and setting. The question is, what is it we’re breathing? Suffice it to say, it’s not all good. According to the World Health Organization, indoor and outdoor pollution caused seven million deaths in 2012. The EPA has discovered that some of the most common air pollutants found in the US are particulate matter, photochemical oxidants and ground-level ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and…

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More businesses are accepting mobile payments, and as a CIO you should be thinking about how to streamline these digital transactions. A byproduct of digital business is that transactions require more advanced and streamlined payment options. PayPal was one of the first to recognize this. Square took the concept to an even higher level with its Cash app. Now Apple Pay, Android Pay and others are advancing the concept. I love pulling out my iPhone and using my thumbprint to pay securely for a Groupon purchase, retail transaction or vending…

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Tired of seeing storms roll in on your business forecasts? Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions can help you predict the best atmosphere for success. Learn about four of these critical prediction tools that you need in your ERP systems to weather storms and see sunny days. The New ERP Today’s ERP systems combine past data with real-time data to provide more accurate forecasts for business applications. Unlike older versions of ERP, having access to up-to-the-moment data creates a clearer picture of customer relationships, public perceptions, political influences and regulatory changes…

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Expect business, life and tech to change radically, as the IoT connects dots that were once invisible and introduces pricing models that were once impossible. As the Internet of things (IoT) takes hold and the ability to measure just about everything takes shape, it’s becoming clear—sometimes painfully so—that pricing models are changing dramatically. We’ve already witnessed the shift to subscription-based pricing for software. Now, a growing number of once pricey IT products and services—from hardware to bandwidth—have been reduced to commodities. Think Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure,…

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Big data can mean big value, and mobile is a great way to analyze it. Here are 10 apps to help you process and analyze your data. Tableau Tableau Mobile is a streamlined mobile version of Tableau’s software. It allows the user to add calculations and data filters with a touch, and it even shows offline snapshots of certain visualizations. Image: Tableau IBM Cognos One of IBM’s key business intelligence (BI) tools, Cognos, is available on mobile. Users can access existing reports and dashboards they have in Cognos, syncing content…

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While majority of users still on PCs, ad blocking for mobile is on the rise. Ad blocking software is set to cost digital publishers almost £19 billion by 2020, a new report from Juniper Research reveals, with global adblock users rising 41 per cent year on year. There were 198 million active users of ad blocking software as of August 2015, CNBC reports , with a recent study from eMarketer suggesting that more than a quarter (27 per cent) of internet users in the UK will start using it by 2017.…

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