Category: Consumerisation of IT

According to SAP, developers will get 85% of the app revenue, with SAP taking the remaining 15%. Paul Webel, SAP Africa GM, says SAP's medium- to long-term strategy is to allow users to consume its applications on multiple devices. He says SAP is targeting ...

The workplace of tomorrow will look like a lot of things actually, including the Internet; just not a whole lot like the way our organizations look today. For one, the workplace itself has steadily begun to disappear as teleworking becomes more and more prevalent, though the latest data shows this will take longer than other more imminent changes. These other disruptive forces, such as next-gen mobility, social networking, cloud computing, and big data, are so close at hand that most organizations are already extensively affected by them. It’s not a stretch to say they are eclipsing how IT is applied to business in many ways, even as IT shops are significantly underestimating their current impact, according to brand new research from Unisys.

More and more mobile devices are showing up at work, whether sanctioned by IT or not. iPhones and iPads, Androids, Blackberries, … today’s workers bring with them the tools with which they are most comfortable in order to get work done. Have you embraced the usage of personal devices in the workplace (a “bring your own device” or “BYOD” policy), or does your company have policies against using non-company sanctioned devices for work related activities? Even if prohibited, you can bet there are employees using their personal technologies (phones, tables, laptops) for at least some information sharing related to work, verbally if not actual data sharing. Similarly, despite any limitations you may have on accessing external social sites while at work, surveys show that employees will find ways to circumvent those policies.

The technology might exist to provide employees with access to applications and data while mobile, but do they want it? Organisations should be aware of making assumptions about the consumerisation of IT, according to IDC, as recent research shows that some commonly held views do not reflect the preferences, perceptions and usage of technology by enterprise employees in Australia and New Zealand. "The consumerisation of IT story is not yet grounded in hard and fast data on the vast majority of enterprise employee preferences, usage and expectations around IT in ANZ," said IDC senior analyst, Trevor Clarke. "However, the sustained and vocal consumerisation narrative currently reverberating around the industry and the solutions being proffered for addressing it will effectively become the target state for many organisations unless they proactively formulate a long-term workspace strategy that addresses the desires of the employee majority balanced with key or vocal influencers' views and  organisational goals." In its recent report, The A/NZ enterprise employee survey: Testing the top 7 assumptions about the consumerisation of IT, IDC deconstructs seven of the key assumptions about the consumerisation of IT. The assumptions tested as part of the survey included: employee preferences for consumer devices and applications ...

Armed with powerful mobile devices, consumers and employees have become the force behind a wireless wave of change. Whether they are seeking discounted prices or looking to coordinate a sales campaign, these mobile end-users are growing impatient with companies that are still trying to control behavior and the sharing of information.

SAP Consulting Self-Service is a quick and easy way for customers to select and book an SAP consultant who has the skills and knowledge they require. Customers can search on a whole range of attributes, including project duration, industry, solution area, consultant role, region and consultant proficiency, progressively narrowing their search down until they find consultants who match their criteria. Consulting Self-Service then allows them to view detailed profiles of qualifications and experience, compare one consultant against another and, most importantly, view their availability. Once the customer selects the right consultant for his needs, he enters some information about the work he wishes the consultant to perform. The consultant calls back the customer to verify the required work and agree on the scope and effort. Once agreement is reached the consultant perform the work and enters back to the system engagement summary for the benefit of the customer. Now it’s the time for the customer to accept the deliverables and provide feedback.

In today’s ever more technology-centric world, the stodgy IT department isn’t considered the home of innovation and business leadership. Yet that might have to change as some of the biggest advances in the history of technology make their way into the front lines of service delivery. Here’s an exploration of the top five IT trends in the next half decade, including some of the latest industry data, and what the major opportunities and challenges are.

Gijima is set to become the first enterprise partner for Apple in Africa, in a deal that is expected to be announced within the next week. In terms of the agreement, Gijima becomes the only partner for Apple in delivering solutions in the enterprise space. As things stand, Apple’s platforms are mainly engaged by the consumer sector on the continent.

In a recent interview with ISAP, Ray Wang, principal analyst and CEO at Constellation Research Group and author of the popular enterprise software blog A software insiders point of view, discussed the current status and short-term future for SAP. Wang believes SAP is better positioned to compete in the new market than it was 12 months ago, due to its performance “innovating on the edges”, especially in the five key areas defining “the consumerisation of IT” – social, mobile, cloud, analytics and unified communications.

If you’ve noticed that SAP applications are getting easier to use, you can trace the origins of that evolution to the subject of this month’s Jargon Buster: rich Internet applications (RIAs).

The increase in workforce mobility, the adoption of virtualisation and cloud computing and the growing acceptance of "Bring Your Own Device" in the enterprise are all forces contributing to the erosion of the established enterprise security model. As the smartphone and tablet, running iOS, Android and possibly soon Windows Phone7, become tools of choice for the mobile corporate employee; data and systems are increasingly mobile, less centrally managed and traditional security architecture becomes more fragmented.