Open Source Becoming More Of An Eye Opener

By James Passingham, Technical Services Director for independent managed communications provider, Foehn – www.foehn.co.uk

More and more businesses are turning to ‘open source’ IT and telephony solutions for a variety of reasons, among them significant cost savings and the flexibility to manage systems such as scaling up or down, according to business needs.

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Translating The Big Data Language Problem

By Keith Laska, CEO SDL Language Technologies Division

The emergence of the digital age has created an explosion of data, across numerous languages and channels. Every day, 175 million Tweets are sent[1], 2 million blog posts are written[2], 68.1 million posts are created on Tumblr[3], and 60,000 new websites are added[4]. Every 60 seconds on Facebook sees 293,000 new status updates.  This rise in online communication and interactions spans 2 billion Internet users, speaking 6000 languages worldwide; only 20% speak English as their first language.

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Flash: Enabling the “Mission-Critical Business”

By Brian Feller, VP & GM EMEA, Whiptail

Imagine how your business might benefit if you processed 1,000 more transactions per second. If you concluded an analysis 20 minutes sooner. If a batch processing job was reduced from eight hours to two – or even less.

Those are some of the benefits offered by flash storage for business applications and data, as opposed to traditional mechanical, hard disk-drive storage devices.  It’s a fundamental business transition from selecting some applications to push towards peak performance into an enterprise where every application accelerates to its maximum potential. Flash enables a high performance “mission critical business,” which efficiently manages data center resources while leveraging personnel more effectively. Continue reading

Technology innovation can inspire young people and change their lives

By Nigel Kershaw, Chairman, The Big Issue and CEO, Big Issue Invest

 

Everywhere you look people’s lives are being transformed by technology. There have been huge advances in e-education and e-health, not to mention Raspberry Pi’s mission to make affordable family computing available to all.

In fact, there are countless examples of digital technology being used in imaginative ways to change the lives of others and the communities in which they live. Yet the world around us has never been more volatile and uncertain. Continue reading

What Is Cloud Faxing?

By Trish Gilson, Senior Sales Consultant, SecureCare Technologies, Inc

Many people are familiar with the decades-old system of faxing. It is a tried and tested system of sending and receiving information in real-time from contacts on the other end of the phone line. For security, audit and compliance reasons, many fax machines survived the evolution of email. But more and more people are now ditching their fax machines in favour of internet-based solutions like fax-to-email and secure cloud-based fax. Continue reading

Hospitality technology must stop living in the dark ages

By Jerry Brand, Managing Director at F&B technology firm, Caternet 

Tough economic challenges normally means increased consumer demand for higher quality but lower priced goods and services. For the hospitality business, this means that whilst the opportunities are high, making good profit margins is getting harder by the day.

Additionally, when it comes to supportive technology, the hospitality sector has historically been far behind other industries. Why? This is due to a mixture of development cost, available technologies to create more sophisticated solutions, and a fear of adoption by management. Where technology has moved forward, it has been financially-driven, predominantly in epos-based (electronic point of sale) technologies. To date, software related to food & beverage (F&B) management and the supply chain have been very poorly invested in. Continue reading

What can the USA learn from the implementation of the FSA’s phone ruling in the UK?

By Neil Hammerton, CEO of Natterbox

In November 2011, the UK’s Financial Services Authority introduced a ruling on mobile phone conversations within the financial industry. It stated that all calls relating to transactions in the equities, bond, derivatives and financial commodity markets must be recorded and stored for six months.

This, the FSA declared, would help deter and detect market abuse in the UK. The United States is now following suit with the signing of a federal law for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act set out by President Obama.

The US-based legislation, the Dodd Frank reform, also requires all telephone trades to be recorded. This is for deals made both within the USA and also for foreign banks trading with the USA. These restrictions will have an instant worldwide effect. The reform comes into play this month. Continue reading

Making sustainability your business

By David Lear, executive director, corporate sustainability, Dell

 

A shift in thinking has taken place in the past few years; businesses are becoming more aware of their carbon footprint, and are striving to reinforce their environmental credentials, to find ways to care for the environment, minimise their impact and even win business.

In the past, many companies may have side-lined green initiatives, either deeming them too costly to implement or through lack of awareness of the concrete steps that could be taken and the business benefits. With changes in the environment, such as the increased accountability for CO2 emissions, rising costs of energy and legislation such as the WEEE Directive, businesses are increasingly changing their processes and creating innovative methods to minimise the environmental impact of their operations by using resources efficiently and managing wastes effectively.

For example, the supply chain, one of the most fundamental parts of many businesses, can prove to be a key place to accommodate sustainable initiatives. Continue reading

Is Faxing Still Relevant for Your Business

By Aisling Brennan, Marketing Manager for eFax

In an era of highly advanced business communication proven by the numerous innovations that emerged in recent years, it would be easy to assume that faxing will soon be extinct.

However, while modernisation has indeed made different forms of communication obsolete in the past, fax equipment still hold a distinct place in businesses in this day and age. Continue reading

Has performance support come of age?

By Simon Meager is managing director of Footprint Media

 

The big question on everyone’s lips is: what can we expect workplace learning technologies to look like in 2013? The answer is a performance support solution. While this might not be a new answer (but rather an old answer marrying together a new technology with a new approach to business) the argument for performance support is stronger than ever.

As the line between work and learning is quickly disappearing, which for many is a good thing, organisations are now looking for an improved performance to be a function of better work processes, tools, and resources. Couple this desire for ongoing performance improvement with the focus on mobility, and the need for workers to have the support they need anytime and anywhere, and the answer undoubtedly lies with performance support. Continue reading