Over the past 20 years, releases of new Windows operating systems have been marked by midnight sales parties, junkets crammed with reporters, and Microsoft’s biggest marketing campaigns. The introduction of Windows 10 on July 29 is much quieter: no ringing the Nasdaq opening bell, no promos with sitcom stars or Rolling Stones songs—just 13 parties around the world to thank volunteers who’ve helped debug and refine the operating system during the past year. “Having a big launch with celebrities, it might be news­worthy, but it’s not necessarily the step to…

Enable key differentiators that provide a competitive edge.   There’s been a lot of talk recently about the need for IT to focus on delivering business outcomes, as opposed to products and services. In my experience, far too many things are considered IT investments when they’re actually business capability investments that are enabled through IT. Make business investments for business outcomes As a designer, implementer, and integrator of technology, IT can help define the expected value in terms of return on investment and total cost of ownership (TCO). However,  I think…

At NetHui last week one of the most interesting sessions was “Is there an app for that?”. The issue was that while apps can be easy to use, they are little walled gardens within an app store which is another level of walled garden. The Apple app store or Google play makes it easy to find apps, but it also means that you’re limited to apps that your environment’s corporate overlords approve and in Apple’s case, charge to include. On Android, it’s easy to change a setting so you can…

“Put your business in the cloud!”… “You’re missing out if you’re not in the cloud yet!” You’ve probably heard a ton of these phrases from articles on the internet, gurus on Twitter, or even friends who own businesses. But has anyone ever stopped to explain to you what a cloud-based POS (point of sale) system actually is? The experts are often so excited to promote new technologies that they fail to explain the basics to newbies. We’ll give you the rundown you probably need — a “cloud-based POS systems 101.”…