Business, Challenges, Efficiency, Productivity, Customer
SMEs Maintaining IT Spend to Work Smarter, Leaner
2. The most pressing business challenges include increasing efficiency and productivity (80 percent), improving customer care (74 percent) and better use of information (72 percent). [...] Meanwhile, 10 percent reported no change, while 37 percent were reducing their budget. According to study data, most are holding or increasing their budgets to use IT to help drive efficiencies or reduce costs in other areas of the business or better connect with customers. [...] The Inside the Mid-market. A 2009 Perspective study surveyed 1,879 business and IT decision makers in 17 countries to get insights into their business plans and challenges, growth and innovation strategies, IT purchasing trends, and industry-specific pain points. [...]
Unisys Cloud Solutions To Access ClearPath Mainframes
Like other tech vendors, Unisys has been hearing from customers about their interest in moving to a cloud environment to some degree. IT departments are under pressure to bring costs down while improving productivity and efficiency, and are looking for alternatives to traditional data centre business models, Maclean said. [...] The ClearPath Cloud Development and Test Solution will be available later this quarter. That will be followed by cloud solutions for production environments, data replication, and disaster and recovery, and for select application-as-a-service offerings for customers' specific industry requirements, Maclean said. [...] With ClearPath Cloud Development and Test Solution, businesses will be able to license time on ClearPath systems in Unisys' Eagan, Minn., data centre in three-month blocks. Developers who need extra capacity or computing power will be able to license what they need from Unisys, including an SDK (software development kit) for the latest MCP or OS 2200 operating environments, virtual CPU, memory, storage and networking resources, maintenance and support, and software enhancement releases. [...]
Panda Updates Hosted Security Application
Without a dedicated internal IT department and a tendency for multitasking, SMB owners value cost efficiency and insured productivity as essential product attributes in IT security solutions, Zevallos said. Based on feedback from Panda's customers and our comprehensive TCO comparison, it's clear that business owners and IT administrators need to make the evolution from traditional anti-virus to SAAS. . [...] Services Management Security / Services Company Business / Management Security Business st. [...] We can now dedicate more time to other pressing projects and customer service. [...]
AT&T Launches Smart Grid Despite Hacking Concerns
Utilities throughout the US face tremendous challenges to increase renewable energy sources and efficiency, as well as manage new applications, which place new complexities on an already complex system, said Chris Hill, vice president, mobility product management, AT&T Business Solutions. [...]
Tech Sector Hopes To Emerge From Recession First
When asked to identify the biggest challenges they currently face in dealing with the economic downturn, the executives most frequently said finding new sources of revenue (66 percent), managing costs and restoring business confidence (42 percent each), and adjusting to changing customer demand (37 percent). [...] Survey respondents also identified the top three triggers they think will spur an economic recovery, with 42 percent of executives citing improved business confidence, 41 percent listing improved consumer confidence, and 32 percent naming an improved job market. [...] A survey of 130 top-level software and hardware technology executives say their industry will lead the country out of the current economy, with eight out of 10 executives expecting business conditions in the technology sector to improve in 2010. [...]
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Released
Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop continued on the new efficiency theme during the keynote address at TechEd Europe, saying, Sustainable growth is not going to come from cutting costs but from improvements in productivity and new innovation. . [...] Microsoft announced the worldwide launch of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, the next version of its messaging and collaboration platform for businesses, on 9 Nov. at the opening day of the TechEd Europe conference in Berlin. Attempting to address businesses' concerns over slashed IT budgets, Microsoft is emphasising the cost savings and increased efficiency of the updated platform, specifically its lower-cost storage model and enhanced productivity features. [...] The 64-bit Exchange Server 2010, along with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, are part of Microsoft's push to persuade businesses into a tech refresh that will boost declining revenue trends. To that end, Microsoft has spent the past several months promoting the three flagship products as integral parts of what CEO Steve Ballmer termed the new efficiency during a company event in San Francisco in September. [...]
IT Optimistic Over Budgets For 2010
When IT technology executives were polled by the Society for Information Management (SIM) earlier this year, business productivity and cost-cutting topped the list of priorities for 2009. Business intelligence applications topped the list for important technologies, followed by server virtualisation, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, customer/corporate portals, enterprise application integration/management (EAI/EAM), and continuity planning/disaster recovery, as told in a SIM news release. [...] IT executives are focusing on ensuring that business is conducted efficiently to get more mileage out of their budgets. [...] In a reflection of more optimism in business and job prospects for 2010, a new report has found that nearly half of technology professionals expect their budgets to increase next year, but some familiar worries will remain with us for some time. [...]
Companies Cut IT Costs, Improve Efficiencies
For the future, security remains of top importance to those surveyed. About 73 percent of respondents said protecting customer and company data was their top security priority, followed by using security tools to advance overall business goals (52 percent) and increasing end-user productivity (51 percent). [...] A new Microsoft-commissioned study by Harris Interactive into the recession's effects on IT spending suggests that while the majority of IT professionals have given belt-tightening their highest priority, many also plan to increase their investments in virtualisation, cloud computing and other tools to drive business efficiency. [...] What we're seeing is those companies who invest today and focus their investments on efficiency are setting themselves up for a faster return to growth. Bob Kelly, Microsoft's corporate vice president of infrastructure server marketing, said in a 23 June conference call. [...]
BlackBerrys Pay Back Costs Many Times Over
For businesses at the reactive stage, the business efficiency benefits&mdash.which vary depending on the type of employee but include productivity and increased employee satisfaction&mdash.of a BlackBerry solution account for more than 75 percent of benefits, while at the proactive stage, business efficiency constitutes 68 percent of the benefits, and at the integrative stage, 60 percent. [...] Forrester also found the largest increases in productivity to be among employees in sales, field service and executive management roles. According to the report, Productivity benefits range from saving 1 to 2 hours per week for sales, field service and executive managers in reactive organisations to improving productivity by 13 to 21 hours per week for sales personnel in integrative deployment stage enterprises. . [...] Organisations in the proactive stage deploy BlackBerry smartphones and mobile applications to a broader range of employees, including customer service and support, and IT personnel & Companies in the integrative deployment stage view mobility solutions as key strategic initiatives and deploy BlackBerrys and mobile applications to a wide range of workers. [...]
Microsoft Goes On Cloud Cost Cutting Offensive
Microsoft cut the cost of the Business Productivity Online Suite&mdash.which includes the Web-based versions of Exchange and SharePoint as well as Office Communications Online and Office Live Meeting&mdash.for business customers by about a third, dropping the per-user price from $15 to $10 per month. [...] While Exchange has traditionally been an on-premises application for businesses of all sizes, Microsoft may be hoping that the lowered cost for the online version will attract businesses to the Business Productivity Online Suite, which would allow it to stave off a challenge from Google Apps and Gmail. [...] Microsoft also expanded the reach of Business Productivity Online Suite, introducing commercial availability in 36 countries and regions including Singapore. [...]
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