Mobile workers getting a raw deal

Key Points:
- Many companies are struggling to support remote workers because they have not taken a strategic approach to deployment
- Enterprises need to shift their focus away from just delivering applications to office-based staff and invest resources into delivering them to remote workers
- To be effective, remote workers need to be provided with the most appropriate
collaboration tools and extensive support so that they can remain productive
- A strategic approach to remote working can also pay financial dividends by cutting down on uncontrolled expenses

Within three years, one billion workers around the world could be classed as mobile, estimates IDC. The analyst firm attributes the uptake to growing pressure on companies to provide work/life balance programs and advances in mobile networks and devices.
To read more about remote working please click on the links below

• CIO: Struggling to Support Remote Workers? It's Only Going to Get Worse
• IT Director: Quocirca's Straight Talking: Just how distributed is your business?

Managing the mobile mayhem

“Some IT departments are experiencing huge delivery issues in getting the right devices into the right hands”

Empowered by pervasive mobile and wireless broadband and a range of mobile device options, it has become easier to take the office with you. In the U.S. for example, 50 million mobile workers spend at least 20% of their time away from their primary workplace. 45% of these can be categorized as mobile professionals, such as consultants, and it is this group which is growing fastest.

Equipping mobile workers, however, can be a challenge for many organizations. “Some IT departments are experiencing huge delivery issues in getting the right devices into the right hands,” says Guillaume Freyburger, Enterprise Mobility Product Manager, Orange Business Services. “If that happens and end users don’t get what they want, they may go off and buy their own equipment. This leads to compliance problems and potentially a huge liability for enterprises.”
To find out more about Mobile Office, please click on the link below

• mobility office

Future Technologies:

Blacker than black

Researchers in the U.S. have developed the darkest material ever made by man. The material is built out of arrays of vertical carbon nanotubes and absorbs more than 99.9 percent of light. The team at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York and Rice University in Houston, Texas says that the material could be used to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of solar energy conversion, thermal-photovoltaic electricity generation, infrared detection and astronomical observation.

• more about "Rensselaer"
• more about "Rice"

Future Technologies:

A light bulb moment

Being awakened by a bleeping mobile phone running out of power inspired Professor Marin Soljacic of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to develop WiTricity, or wireless electricity, which allows devices to charge themselves without the need for wires or adapters.

“It was probably the sixth time that month that I was awakened by my cell phone bleeping to let me know that I had forgotten to charge it,” said Solajcic.

• more about "WiTricity"

IT Governance: IT’s all about process

IT governance lies at the core of effective information communications technology.
In this Consultant spotlight, NExT TIMES speaks to Orange consultant Frans
Wiggers about how IT governance helps organizations achieve the holy grail of aligning their IT with their business and why ITIL® cuts IT costs.
What is IT governance and why is it important? Put simply, IT governance is the art of managing your information technology processes. It is usually the job of the CIO, but in very large organizations, responsibilities will also be shared with the CTO.
Technology itself is no longer as important in IT as it used to be, because it has become standardized. Compared to 20 to 30 years ago, technology is easy: we use technical building blocks to build an IT infrastructure and it works – that has not always been the case. IT governance is there to ensure that your IT is aligned with your business requirements by looking at what business processes need to be
supported.

• more about "IT Governance"