Dear Readers:
Starting next week, you’ll be able to read about the future of productivity on the Microsoft Office 365 blog. We have decided to merge the blogs and post our productivity conversations on the Office 365 blog. Why? Because Office 365 is the future of productivity.
Microsoft Office 365 takes the Microsoft Office collaboration and productivity tools that we all use every day and delivers them as a subscription service through the cloud. The productivity benefits of Office 365 have been well documented. Employees can work effectively using high-quality tools wherever they are. IT leaders can spend less time on administration and maintenance, freeing up time for more strategic initiatives. And businesses can lower their overall costs – all with the appropriate layers of security and compliance. What’s more, organizations have the option of moving all or part of their workloads to the cloud – there are no mandates from Microsoft.
As we merge this blog with the Office 365 blog, our goal is continue to help you improve efficiency and drive innovation. The Office 365 blog will deliver the tangible insights, vision, information, and action you need to achieve the highest level of productivity for your employees.
As you transition to the Office 365 blog, we hope you’ll also take advantage of these other resources aimed specifically at enterprise business:
And for the latest information about enterprise-focused solutions from Microsoft and its partners, please check out the Microsoft Enterprise web site: www.microsoft.com/enterprise
See you on the Office 365 blog!
The Microsoft Enterprise Productivity Team
Follow us on Twitter (@office365)
Welcome to another round of featured news items from around the web. Each week, we handpick articles for our community related to cloud and enterprise technology. We welcome your suggestions for next week’s round-up— share your links in the comments section or tweet a link to us at @msproductivity.
Rethinking the Desktop, a CIO spearheads a mobile device strategy
Faced with an upgrade to Windows 7, CIO Rick Roy saw an opportunity to launch a mobile device strategy that would save his company money, give employees choice -- and make IT look good in the process. His first order of business was convincing an IT team hardwired for standardization that mobility required a new mind-set. In this SearchCIO.com podcast, Roy, who heads IT strategy at CUNA Mutual Group, describes his meticulous, data-driven approach to crafting a mobile device strategy that will transform the insurance provider's desktop computing environment radically. One important lesson: While the requirements for a mobile device strategy need to be gathered bottom-up, he said, "you need to make those decisions pretty much top-of-the-house."
Enterprise Mobility's Next Phase: Contextual Services
Forget the mobile operating system wars or the debate about which mobile devices should be the standard. The enterprise mobility discussion needs to shift to the topic of using mobile devices to improve business processes and create contextual services that harness Big Data. In this interview with SearchCIO.com, mobility expert Maribel Lopez, principal analyst and vice president at Constellation Research Inc. and founder of market research and strategy consulting firm Lopez Research LLC, delves into these subjects and into the benefits of merging enterprise mobility, cloud and social media strategies.
IM, SharePoint tools will edge out email, CIOs say
Robert Half Technology polled 1,400 CIOs and asked if they think real-time workplace communication tools -- such as instant messaging, SharePoint and Yammer -- will become more or less popular than email among employees. More than half bet on the newcomers. Specifically, 13% of CIOs said the real-time tools will be much more popular, and 41% said somewhat more popular, than traditional e-mail. On the other side of the fence, a minority of email holdouts said the real-time tools will be somewhat less popular (5%) or much less popular (2%) than traditional email. More than one-third (38%) straddled the fence, saying they expect the tools will be equally popular. (1% of respondents didn't know or didn't answer.)
Thoughts from Microsoft CIO Tony Scott
Tony Scott on Business Relationship Management for CIOs
How are successful CIOs managing key internal relationships and helping to align IT with their businesses? What are some prime success factors internal relationship managers need to monitor? Hear about the Business Relationship Management program Microsoft CIO Tony Scott has established based on his experience with these and related questions
Reaching Beyond the Enterprise and Helping to Make the World a Better Place
Why is it important for CIOs and other executives to get behind philanthropic initiatives? What are some of the charitable projects Microsoft is currently involved with, and how can other corporate executives and teams take part in bringing about important change in their communities and the world at large? Hear Microsoft CIO Tony Scott’s point of view on these important issues in this discussion with Microsoft Senior Director of Executive Accounts Sue Hadi.
No longer are information workers confined to the four walls of the office building. The combination of high-speed wireless networks and powerful mobile devices such as laptops, smartphones, and PDAs has made it possible to work from pretty much anywhere. Today, the “office” can be a conference room, a café, a hotel room—or even the front seat of a car.
By 2013, more than one-third of the world’s workforce will be mobile. And by 2014, more than 130 million enterprise customers will be using mobile-cloud based applications. No wonder more than half of all companies—54 percent—cite effective management of remote employees as their biggest concern in managing a mobile workforce.
As the office extends to an ever wider range of work locations, it’s important for IT administrators to keep their workers productive, while still maintaining the security of their data. Tasks like opening a document on a mobile device, collaborating with team members, or checking a calendar need to be a seamless extension of the tools workers already know to use. At the same time, back-end processes like security and identity management should extend from the core enterprise platform to the mobile workforce without requiring an entirely new infrastructure.
During the month of September, we’ll be focusing on how the Microsoft productivity platform addresses the needs of an increasingly mobile workforce. We’ll show how to simplify management by integrating all workers into a single, unified system. We’ll also discuss how the productivity platform enables the enterprise to boost employee productivity without compromising security or infrastructure reliability. Finally, we’ll highlight organizations that have found innovative ways to improve the productivity of their mobile workers, while effectively managing security and identity management.
In the meantime, we’d like to hear from you. Is your staff becoming increasingly mobile? What opportunities and challenges does a mobile workforce present for your organization?Please share your experience by leaving a comment here.