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MAY 2015 VOL. 13 ISS.
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Volume 13 : Issue 5 : May 2015
39
JMA WIRELESS IMPROVES WIRELESS

CONNECTIVITY WITH INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS
8 COVER STORY
from sports stadiums to metro areas to
the enterprise, JMA Wireless delivers
high-performance connectivity
10 BUSINESS
Google's Fiber and Wi-Fi initiatives, thinking
visually in cybermarketing, millennials in the
workplace
18 CLOUD
enterprise resource planning solutions finally
make their way into the cloud
22 MOBILITY
top mobility predictions for 2015, innovations
in location technologies, mobile devices and
payments
CONTACT US
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Lincoln, NE 68521
IDENTIFY SYSTEM ISSUES

QUICKLY WITH SERVICE CENTER
31 COMMUNICATIONS
unified communications vendors increasingly
offer UC via the cloud
50 SECURITY
cyberthreat report, better ROI from risk
management
34 ENERGY
the latest news and research into energyconscious tech
54 WEB
privacy and credit card records
37 IT
more colocation providers for more data, how
PC Doctor's Service Center helps IT personnel
identify and solve problems quickly
41 NETWORKING
network optimization basics, choosing the
right VDI provider, avoiding headaches when
upgrading Wi-Fi hardware
56 ELECTRONICS
the latest in premium consumer electronics,
innovations in wearable technology
60 TIPS
smartphone, data usage, travel, and other tips
for mobile professionals
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Server Market Grows, Focusing

On Distinct Customer Workloads
The worldwide server market ended 2014
with its third consecutive quarter of yearover-year revenue growth, based on IDC
research. Factory revenue was up 1.9% between Q4 2013 and Q4 2014; shipments increased 2.8% during the same timeframe.
IDC attributes the growth to continued infrastructure investments by cloud service
providers and an ongoing enterprise refresh
cycle. The server market is largely focused
on meeting the needs of two distinct sets of
customer workloads, says Matt Eastwood,
IDC group vice president and general manager. Traditional 2nd Platform workloads
require richly configured, integrated systems
aimed at driving significant levels of consolidation while also enabling advanced management and automation in the data center.
New 3rd Platform, next-generation workloads are stateless, scale horizontally, and do
not assume infrastructure resiliency.
Smart Cities Bring Tech Opportunities

In our increasingly service-oriented and economically challenged world, cities will
naturally move toward smart technologies (smart homes and smart commercial buildings) with a goal of increasing efficiency while reducing spending. As this occurs,
Gartner anticipates the number of connected things will grow from 1.1 billion this year
to 9.7 billion in 2020. We expect that by 2020, many IoT [Internet of Things] TSPs
[technology and services providers] will have grown their hardware revenues through
services and software by more than 50%, says Bettina Tratz-Ryan, research vice president with Gartner. The accompanying table shows the growth rates Gartner predicts for
connected things by smart city subcategory.
Connected Things (In Millions) In Smart City Subcategories
2015
2016
2017
Health Care
9.7
15
23.4
Public Services
97.8
126.4
159.5
Smart Commercial Buildings
206.2
354.6
648.1
Smart Homes
294.2
586.1
1,067
Transport
237.2
298.9
371
Utilities
252
304.9
371.1
Others
10.2
18.4
33.9
Total
1,107.3
1,704.2
2,674
Complexity Drives Managed

Security Success
Persistent Location Tracking To

Become More Common
Do You Check Email During

Conference Calls?
Managed security services enable companies to keep up with security threats and response mechanisms,
ideally to the highest degree possible,
without having to deal directly with the
complexities involved in ever-changing
security requirements. This, says ABI
Research, as well as increases in data
breaches (49% from 2013 to 2014) and
stolen digital records (78% from 2013 to
2014), accounts for a marked increase
in the adoption of managed security
services. ABI expects the managed security services market will be worth $15.4
billion by the end of this year, and $32.9
billion in 2020.
Location-based sensor fusion in mobile devices involves the integration of

location-sensing activity as a persistent,
always-on feature rather than something
that works whenever authorizedsay,
when a user gives a collaboration app
permission to identify its current location. Although location-based sensor fusion is highly uncommon in smartphones
today, ABI Research forecasts that more
than 2 billion such smartphones will be
on the market within four years. The
market will be complicated, according to
ABI Research, as both independent chip
makers and smartphone manufacturers
will make the necessary components.
Multitasking isnt just for the harried

young professional anymore; it is coming
closer to becoming the norm. According to
an eMarketer report, an Accenture survey
of business professionals found workday
distractions are plentiful32% cited phone
calls as common workday distractions and
30% pointed to unscheduled meetings or
unannounced visitorsand the keeping
up with digital demands is a challenge. Of
those surveyed, most admitted to multitasking during conference calls: 66% said
they checked work emails, 35% exchanged
instant messages, 34% checked personal
email, 22% kept up with social media, and
21% surfed the Web.
May 2015 / www.cybertrend.com
Companies Improving Customer

Experience Game
In a global survey of 6,000 marketers
and Internet professionals conducted
by Econsultancy and Adobe and published in January, 78% of respondents
said theyre planning to help make
their companies stand apart from the
competition this year by improving
their customer experience efforts.
The ways in which respondents intend to act on these goals vary, with
33% focusing on making the customer
experience more individuated and relevant, 29% on value in general, 12%
on consistency across channels, 10%
on ensuring safe and reliable customer
experience, 7% on making sure the experience is fun or fulfilling. The
survey shows that reaching multiple
channels will be a top priority, as 60%
said cross-channel marketing will be
key in 2015.
Small Businesses Ready To Spend On Tech

New technology is the No. 1 spending priority this year for the small-business owners
surveyed by Zogby Analytics. In a report commissioned by Xero, Zogby found that
46.4% of small-business owners have technological focuses for 2015, with 33.1% focused
on new technology and 13.3% prioritizing going online. The leading non-tech business
focuses included increasing inventory (17.1%), hiring more people (7%), and expanding
their geographic footprint (4.6%). In terms of tech spending, budgetary restraints continue to be an issue, as illustrated by the accompanying chart.
Main Tech Challenges For Small-Business Owners
Lack of budget for technology

19.90%
30.70%
New technology is not a fit for my oldschool business

Technologies dont work well together or
are not integrated
11%
14.50%
23.90%
Dont understand how to use new

technology
Other
DevOps On Its Way To Becoming

Mainstream
Constant Connections
& Privacy Concerns
Android Takes A Hit, Chiefly

From Apple
Although DevOps, broadly speaking,

is a methodbringing together development and operations personnel
for improved software development,
testing, and deploymentthere is
substantial potential for DevOps
tools, which can be DevOps ready,
enabled, or capable, according to
Gartner. The research firm forecasts the
global DevOps tools market value will
grow from $1.9 billion last year to $2.3
billion this year. This corresponds with
Gartners expectations for the DevOps
approach overall, as the firm predicts
DevOps will break out from its niche
status and become mainstream in 2016.
A recent survey by American Internet

users by AYTM (Ask Your Target
Market) shows that 46% report going
online constantly throughout the day,
with 30% going online a few times a day
and 19% once per day. Focusing on the
constant connection segment due to
its broader exposure to potential online
privacy risks, AYTM asked survey participants about privacy concerns; 89%
reported that everyone should have a
complete right to privacy online and
82% would avoid using a website or Webconnected app if they discovered it had
collected their data without informing
them beforehand.
Shipments of certified Android

smartphones fell 5% in Q4 2014 from
the previous quarter, marking the first
quarter-to-quarter drop for Android,
according to ABI Research. Googles
Android is being attacked by Apples
iOS at the high end and forked [or altered] Android and AOSP [Android
open-source parts] at the low end in
high-growth emerging markets, says
Nick Spencer, senior practice director
for mobile devices with ABI. Worrying
times for Googles mobile services and
Android, but it presents opportunity for
other service providers and even operating systems, he adds.
CyberTrend / May 2015
Wearables & Payments,

A Winning Combination
If youre among the majority who seem
to have a zero to lukewarm interest in
wearable device technology, it may surprise you to find that 30% of American
smartphone owners currently own a wearable device, according to a recent Stratos
survey. Of those who own such a device
most (53%) own a smart wristband; runners up include wearable cameras (32%),
smart clips (26%), smart watches (24%),
and smart glasses (10%). Furthermore,
Stratos found that mobile payment features
might be the perfect match for wearable
devices, as 43% of those surveyed answered
positively when asked if they would like
to be able to make in-store payments with
their wearable devices. Digital cards ranked
highest (49%) as the device type respondents would prefer to use for in-store payments, followed by mobile devices (32%),
watches (9%), and wristbands (8%).
Social Media Use Still Growing Across The Board

Among all age groups, social media usage is climbing, and will continue to climb for
the foreseeable future, according to new research from eMarketer. The firms research
shows 5.4 million more Americans will become social media users by 2016, adding to the
180 million total identified at the start of this year. Instagram is the fastest growing social media platform, says eMarketer, and those in the 65-plus age category are taking to
social media in higher numbers than other age categories. With roughly 35 million users
this year, the 25- to 34-year-old category are the heaviest social media users. The accompanying chart shows the breakdown of usage within that category.
Tumbler
Social Media Usage
5.3%
Pinterest
Facebook
10.2%
Twitter
32.1%
11.3%
19.4%
Instagram
21.7%
Other
Wi-Fi Hotspot Numbers Growing

At A Rate Of 11.2%
Driver Assistance Systems

Taking Off At High Speed
Tablet Growth Continues

To Slow Down
The proliferation of Wi-Fi hotspots is

hardly news, but its interesting to note
the rate of growth. According to ABI
Research, there were about 5.69 million
public Wi-Fi hotspots globally by the end
of 2014, and there will likely be 7.8 million this year and 13.3 million in 2020.
In addition to many commercial establishments offering free or freemium
hotspots, wireless carriers are operating
more hotspots. The operators tend to see
Wi-Fi hotspots as a method of offloading
mobile data traffic, especially in crowded
areas, says Jake Saunders, vice president
and practice director, core forecasting,
with ABI.
The rate of acceleration for the

ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance
Systems) market is increasing rapidly
as systems that were formerly reserved
for high-end vehicles are making their
way to the mass market, according to
ABI Research. The firm forecasts that
the ADAS market, which is currently
valued at $11.1 billion, will reach $91.9
billion in 2020 and pass $200 billion
by 2024. ADAS includes such features
as safety sensors, night vision systems,
and ACC (adaptive cruise control).
ABI cites Toyota as a leading manufacturer that is pushing these systems into
the mass market.
The growth rate of global tablet shipments

continues to slow, with just 2.1% growth
expected year-over-year from 2014 to 2015,
according to IDC. The research firm expects
this slide to continue, with growth rates in
the low single digits for the foreseeable future. A related trend of interest is the growth
of phablets, which are essentially large smartphones. More and more, says Jitesh Ubrani,
senior research analyst with IDC, vendors
behind small tablets are reducing prices and
adopting features like voice calls to entice
consumers to purchase their products over
competing tablets, making the dynamics of
phablets vs. voice-capable tablets an interesting one to watch.
STARTUPS
Kryptnostic Claims To Offer
A Safer Cloud Experience
Hedvig Modernizes Storage With Distributed System
Appealing to enterprises in search of

a more secure cloud computing environment, San Francisco-based startup
Kryptnostic offers a solution that combines
encryption on the client side with computing power on the cloud side to enable
users to search their encrypted cloud-based
data while the data remains protected.
While encryption at rest protects offline
data, it does nothing for data that must be
worked with online, reads a Kryptnostic
blog post. At Kryptnostic, were developing technologies to disperse the risk and
securing the cloud by enabling online processing and querying of the data without it
ever having to be decrypted. According to
a TechCrunch report, Kryptnostic recently
raised $2 million in a funding round led
by Index Ventures, and plans to use that
money to expand its employees as well as
its services.
As workloads increase and organizations store more and more data, older storage
systems, including some that are just a few years old, are struggling to keep up. Hedvig,
a startup based in Santa Clara, Calif., claims to have addressed this problem with
its patented distributed storage system, which uses a software-defined approach so
cloud and data center personnel can remotely scale
storage in a virtualized
pool. To keep up with this
rapid pace of growth and
change, storage platforms
must now be software defined, says Brian Long,
general partner at Atlantic
Bridge. They must also be
scalable, streamlined and
most importantly, flexible
enough to make instant
provisioning changes. These are some of the advantages Hedvig says its system provides, with practical benefits that include more efficient big data analysis and more
scalable virtual environments. Atlantic Bridge recently led a Series A funding round for
Hedvig, which took in $12.5 million. Hedvig, which had been operating in stealth mode,
announced the new funding and the company launch simultaneously.
Firm Raises $10M For Improved

Contact Management
Quid Raises $39M For Fast,

Intelligent Research Platform
Rubrik Offers Scalable Storage

Solution With 15-Minute Setup
Businesspeople can spend an inordinate amount of time trying to iron out all
of the contact information they collect.
To address this problem, Denver-based
startup FullContact offers multi-platform
software that automates certain contact
management tasks, so users spend less
time synchronizing, combining, and updating information. FullContact closed a
funding round recently, bringing in $10
million and raising its total raised so far
to $20 million. FullContact is currently
available for Gmail and iOS; with the
new funding, the company will continue
working to bring its software to Android
and Mac OS.
A great deal of time and money is routinely expended in the name of rigorous
research, the type businesses depend
on every day to secure client deals, provide consulting services, generate content, make sales, and meet other goals.
Among the companies striving to make
search less tedious and more informative
is Quid, a San Francisco-based startup
that uses artificial intelligence, access to
hundreds of thousands of sources, and
a natural-language search algorithm to
deliver more, better, and faster results.
Quid recently closed $39 million in Series
D funding, which the company says it will
use to continue its growth.
Need to add Web-scale storage technology, complete with backup, recovery,

and DevOps features, within 15 minutes?
Thats the promise of Rubriks hardware
system, which occupies two racks and is
designed for quick and easy deployment.
With founding members that include
former Facebook, Google, and Oracle engineers, the Palo Alto, Calif.,-based startup
recently raised $10 million in a Series A
round of funding. Speaking to the hardwares benefits, CEO Bipul Sinha says,
Businesses can now break the shackles of
legacy and modernize their data infrastructure, unleashing significant cost savings
and management efficiencies.
From Sports Stadiums

To The Enterprise
JMA WIRELESS IMPROVES WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY WITH INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS
IT USED TO BE that cellular networks were only used for voice. But
as brick phones gave way to flip phones, and flip phones gave way to
smartphones, cellular network demand continued to grow. Now a
slew of other devices, including tablets, laptops, and countless wireless
devices and sensors, rely on wireless networks to function correctly.
Reliable, high-quality connectivity is important in almost any
setting, but with so many professionals using mobile devices as
their primary means of communication, its crucial that enterprises
ensure that they offer strong wireless signals and stable connections
company-wide. JMA Wireless (www.jmawireless.com) is dedicated
to helping organizations do just that. In addition to manufacturing
the antennas and other equipment necessary to improve range
and enhance cellular signals within a facility or across a campus,
JMA Wireless provides the expertise required to help organizations
develop an ideal design plan that ultimately serves the needs of employees and guests alike.
A Brief History Of JMA Wireless

Headquartered in New York, JMA Wireless has development
centers located throughout the U.S. and in Germany and Italy, as well
as manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and Italy. Its parent company,
PPC, originated in the 1940s, around the time John Mezzalingua,
grandfather of the current JMA Wireless CEO of the same name, created and patented a unique design for coaxial cable connectors.
Building on the success of these products throughout the following decades and through to the emergence of cable television,
JMA continued to innovate, and in 2012 was established as its own
company as part of a $515 million sale of a portion of PPC. Since
2012, JMA Wireless acquired the top technology innovator in distributed antenna systems [DAS], Teko Telecom, in Bologna, Italy,
and the fastest innovator in antenna technologies, CSS Antenna,
near Baltimore, Md. Combined, these areas create the most complete end-to-end solution for in-building and outdoor DAS in the
market, says Todd Landry, corporate vice president of product and
marketing strategy at JMA Wireless.
These acquisitions helped make JMA Wireless what it is today.
The company manufactures numerous types of antennas, cables,
connectors, and transmission lines, as well as a modular platform to
support them. All of these products are designed to work together
to strengthen wireless signals in any setting.
Industries Served
The products and services JMA Wireless offers are suitable for
any industry or environment, provided the coverage area, whether
State-of-the-art stadiums are designed to carefully beam cellular energy to fans

throughout all areas of the venue. This example illustrates how JMA Wireless systems
are designed to ensure the perfect amount of energy is delivered throughout a largescale football stadium using JMA Wireless DAS (Distributed Antenna System) and their
antennas. The design phase is a critical part of the process.
indoors or outdoors, is roughly 100,000 square feet or larger.

Transportation and sports arenas are the main areas where the
company has truly made its name. However, JMA is also working
to expand further into other markets, offering its services for highrise buildings, multi-tenant facilities, and even industrial environments where reliance on wireless devices is growing rapidly.
Our experience in the industry thus far has been highly aligned
with the growth and demand of solutions for environments like the
top sports stadiums in the world as well as high-density public environments like airports and metro centers, says Landry. One of the
new industries that were now focusing our energies on is the industrial sector. The basis for that is the recent influx of the Internet of
Things and machine-to-machine technologies that have a dependency on cellular data connectivity for them to be useful. We now
see ourselves as the infrastructure inside these industrial environments that can provide very robust and reliable cellular coverage.
Noteworthy Deployments
JMA Wireless has deployments at many stadiums around the
globe, including Angel Stadium in Anaheim, Calif., and Juventus
Stadium in Torino, Italy. JMA Wireless also has deployments at
airports and train stations in Nevada, Italy, Austria, Singapore,
Denmark, and elsewhere. Outside of sports and transportation, the
company has also installed its antenna systems in many high-profile
One of the new industries that were now focusing our

energies on is the industrial sector. The basis for that is
the recent influx of the Internet of Things and machine-tomachine technologies that have a dependency on cellular
data connectivity for them to be useful.
TODD LANDRY
Corporate Vice President Of Product & Marketing Strategy : JMA Wireless
facilities such as the John Hancock Tower and Liberty

Mutual buildings in Boston, the American Museum of
Natural History in New York, Gemelli Hospital in Rome,
and the Verizon headquarters in Basking Ridge, N.J.
Presently, a primary focus for the company is preparing
the technically advanced Levis Stadium for next years
Super Bowl. The 1.85-million-square-foot stadium, located
in Santa Clara, Calif., is home to the San Francisco 49ers
and has 68,500 seats. The state-of-the-art facility features
stadium-wide Wi-Fi, large HD video screens, and, with the
help of JMA Wireless, mobile connectivity. Landry calls
this project a tough challenge, but one that the company
is well-prepared to tackle because it has such a solid installation process in place.
The JMA Wireless Process

Although every environment and project is unique,
JMA Wireless has a standard and proven process to ensure that each installation is a successful one. The first
step involves a site survey, which identifies the physical
construction and materials the facility is made up of and
where the end users would be during a typical day inside
the facility, Landry explains. During the site survey, JMA
Wireless determines what types of antenna are best suited
to the environment and what placement will minimize
interference and maximize signal strength. This is also
when the radio frequency engineering phase takes place,
which determines the degree of power that you pump into
those antennas, Landry says.
The next step is the actual installation, and a critical part
of this step is a focus on optimization. Landry compares it
to waxing a car. You put the wax on and then buff it all
off, he says. As you go across, you think youve covered
every spot, but when youre done and you step back, you
realize theres a gap. Its the same thing in this optimization
phase of the process. It has you slightly tuning the energy
in different antennas or maybe moving the angle of an
antenna a little bit so that the different angle allows it to
provide perfect coverage.
The final step is the operational phase. This phase is
ongoing because new technologies continually emerge
and can be used to improve the overall system

and provide a better connectivity experience.
Expansion might also be
required in certain areas
where you realize there
are more people in one
area than was originally
planned, Landry says.
Higher Performance
For Campuses & Metro Areas
Metropolitan areas and campuses, particularly those surrounding sports complexes, are increasingly transforming to
include more shops, restaurants, hotels, and entertainment
venues. As these areas grow, so too does the demand among
mobile users for wireless connectivity. However, demand
fluctuates. Full coverage may only be necessary in stadiums
for a portion of the year, or in business centers on weekdays, says Landry. As a result, businesses and venues want
smarter systems that can reuse capacity over time.
JMA's C-DAS (Centralized Distributed Antenna
System) architecture offers sector capacity management,
providing excellent economies of scale, reducing the need
for head-end baseband and radio units by as much as 25%.
C-DAS also frees up valuable space that would otherwise
be used for onsite equipment, Landry adds. In some instances, as much as 85% of space is recovered compared to
typical on-premises deployments.
How Enterprises Can Benefit

JMA Wireless is well-established in numerous industries, but Landry says the company also sees big potential
in the large enterprise space. One of the things thats really important for enterprises to realize is that the typical
business user has moved to the mobile device as the predominant tool for communication in business, he says.
Historically, businesses have made significant investments
in in-building communication solutions, such as PBX systems, which we find quite often nobody uses anymore as
they side with the mobile phone instead.
For that reason, enterprises are beginning to change
the way they look at their communications budgets in an
effort to make sure they have a stronger focus on mobile,
and JMA Wireless has the depth of experience to show
companies where to put those dollars to get the best return
on their investment. With many of our customers, we are
consultative in nature and work with them from the beginning of the process through delivery to make sure that, in
the end, they get the best results from implementing this
technology, says Landry.
JMA Wireless | 888.201.6073 | www.jmawireless.com
Google Fiber & Wi-Fi

GOOGLE PLANS TO CONQUER LAND & SKY WITH ITS RECENT NETWORKING INITIATIVES
WHEN GOOGLE comes up with an
KEY POINTS
Google Fiber hasnt been around
for long, but its already established
in three communities and has plans
to expand into five others.
Google Fiber is intended for both
residential and small business
deployments, with a comparatively
low price and flexible terms.
Google Wi-Fi is a rumored plan
to build on Fiber and offer Wi-Fi
connectivity for existing communities and the rest of the U.S.
Recent news indicates that
Google is planning to become a
wireless carrier in its own right,
but with a network based on Wi-Fi
and using cellular connectivity for
roaming purposes.
10
innovative technology or a new approach to how we currently use the

Internet, it doesnt hesitate to get the
ball rolling. Google Fiber is a perfect
example of this, because even though
it might seem like the technology has
been around for a decade, in truth we
only first heard about it back in early
2010. And at that point, it was just the
beginning of an experiment to provide
gigabit (or 1,000 megabits per second)
Internet service to communities
around the United States. Over time,
Google Fiber has become more widely
publicized, and there have been several successful deployments. Currently
Google is showing no signs of slowing
down as it has announced it will bring
its service to many more cities in the
near future.
Whats more, Google Fiber isnt the
only Internet-based infrastructure initiative the company has been working
on over the past few years. Google re-
cently announced plans to launch a

Wi-Fi service, too. Google Wi-Fi would
provide wireless Internet access to numerous communities, not solely those
presently targeted for Google Fiber.
This project also involves delivering
wireless phone service, which stands to
make Google a new player in the wireless cell phone carrier market as well.
But before we delve into where Google
Fiber and Google Wi-Fi stand today,
lets explore the recent history of both
initiatives and shed some light on what
Google hopes to achieve.
Brief History Of Google Fiber

From the outset of the Google Fiber
project, Google was clear that its goals
were not to become worlds sole highspeed Internet provider, but rather to
teach the world how to overcome the
major infrastructure barriers to delivering fast Internet service throughout
a community. The entire process has
been used as an experiment to discover
and towns in Kansas with the help of

the best and most reliable ways to inoffering is Internet speed; Google
local provider partnerships.
stall the technology needed to provide
claims its Fiber service can reach
In 2013, after its initial Kansas City
Internet access, while still being able to
speeds that are nearly 100 times faster
deployment, Google announced plans
offer the service as an affordable rate.
than average Internet connections.
to install its service in Austin, Texas,
In February of 2010, Google anTo illustrate how fast the difference
and Provo, Utah. The Provo installanounced it would begin experimenting
can be, you can initiate a race on
tion was particularly interesting bewith its Fiber technology in an effort
the Google Fiber website to compare
cause the deal required Google to
to urge other providers in the United
10Mbps and other typical download
provide free gigabit Internet to 25 local
States and around the world to start
speeds to Fibers up-to-1-gigabit speed.
organizations as well as provide free
taking high-speed broadband Internet
To download 100 photos, Google says
5Mbps Internet service to any housemore seriously. The goal was to make
it would take about four minutes and
hold willing to pay a $300 activation
the process as open and transparent as
40 seconds with a typical Internet conpossible and to help show how
important high-speed Internet
access is for small businesses
and residential users alike. One
promise was that with faster
Internet speeds in more areas,
developers could start building
more powerful and demanding
applications that might revolutionize the way we use the
Internet in our daily lives.
In October of 2010, Google
announced a partnership with
Stanford University to provide
its experimental Internet service
to approximately 850 homes on
Stanfords campus. Although
this project was not part of
Googles larger community selection process, it served as a
savvy initial deployment as the
university is close to Googles
headquarters and the community is small enough to serve as This map shows the current, future, and possible cities Google has designated for its Google Fiber project as of 2015.
a solid test bed for the service.
Just over a year after Google
first introduced plans to bring
fee. It was around this time that Google
Google Fiber to select communinection, or just about three seconds
started seriously pushing the fact that
ties across America, the company anusing Google Fiber.
Google Fiber is not only great for Web
nounced Kansas City (out of nearly
With the gigabit Google Fiber
access, but also for television streaming,
1,100 cities that applied) would be the
plan, customers also get 1TB of cloud
which helped to illustrate the power of
first location to receive the technology.
storage through Google Drive to store
the high-speed service.
Rather than simply installing a great
photos, videos, music, and other data.
deal of physical infrastructure, however,
And although Google provides a wired
Google was quick to reach out to comnetworking box with the Fiber plan,
Residential & Small Business
munity groups to work with throughout
customers can also elect to buy a
Deployments
the deployment process. For example,
Network+ Box, which delivers highBecause Googles ultimate goal for
Google developed new applications
speed wireless networking that is
Fiber is to provide affordable highwith the University of Kansas Medical
roughly as fast as a wired network.
speed Internet access to everyone in
Center, among other organizations. The
As we mentioned, another pillar of
the U.S., it isnt surprising that the
Fiber service went live in September
Googles Fiber approach is bundled
companys initial focus was on con2012 and expanded to many other cities
TV. With that service tier, customers
sumers. The foundation of the service
11
receive HD programming from over

130 channels (with more available as
add-ons), a 2TB DVR capable of recording up to eight programs simultaneously, and the ability to use Android
and iOS tablets and smartphones as
remote controls. A $130 monthly subscription covers gigabit Internet access plus the TV service, while a $70
monthly subscription provides just the
Internet service. And in some communities, customers can even sign up for
free basic Internet with 5Mbps download speeds and 1Mbps upload speeds;
Google says this service remains free
for each customer for at least seven
years after the customer pays a onetime fee to offset construction costs.
Although Google Fiber certainly
makes sense for residential users, the
high-speed Internet service is perhaps
even more of a game changer for small
businesses. Imagine having the ability
to download a large project almost instantly, whether it consists of a few
documents or an entire database full of
photos, videos, and other media. The
service also helps to improve videoconferencing and achieve HD quality
much more easily.
For $100 per month, current supported communities get the gigabit
Internet service with built-in Wi-Fi,
firewall protection, and online network
management, as well as dedicated support from Google. For businesses, the
price is locked in for an entire year,
the construction fee is waived, and the
service can be canceled at any time
without penalty.
For companies wanting to take advantage of cloud computing through
the use of SaaS (software as a service),
IaaS (infrastructure as a service), or
PaaS (platform as a service) solutions, Googles gigabit Internet service
will offer benefits, ensuring a reliable
connection to the necessary data and
workloads. This can be particularly
helpful for companies using colocation
services, or those with multiple remote
offices, because faster Internet means
better remote performance and reliability across the board.
12
Plans For Future Expansion

Google recently announced plans
to expand its Fiber service in the
near future to Salt Lake City; Atlanta;
Nashville, Tenn.; Charlotte, N.C.; and
Raleigh-Durham, N.C. In the Atlanta
and Raleigh-Durham areas, Google
plans to also provide service to many
surrounding suburbs and communities.
In addition to these designated
cities, Google has reached out to many
other communities in the U.S. to determine what must be done in order
to deliver Fiber service to those areas,
as well. These cities include Phoenix;
Portland, Ore.; San Antonio; San Jose,
Calif.; and other cities and communities in those regions. On its Google
ALTHOUGH GOOGLE
FIBER CERTAINLY
MAKES SENSE
FOR RESIDENTIAL
USERS, THE HIGHSPEED INTERNET
SERVICE IS
PERHAPS EVEN
MORE OF A GAME
CHANGER FOR
SMALL BUSINESSES.
Fiber website, the company maintains
information about upcoming installations and a request form for those who
would like Google to consider their
community for Google Fiber service.
Larger Ambitions
With Google Wi-Fi
Google Fiber goes a long way toward the dream of offering high-speed
broadband Internet access to a large
number of people in the U.S., but due
to geographic barriers and the logistics
involved in laying down the equipment
and building out the infrastructure, it
isnt necessarily a viable approach in
every corner of the country. For that
reason, Google has been working for
more than a year on testing a Wi-Fi
network that could supplement its existing Fiber deployments, while also
making it easier to offer fast Internet
access in more regions.
Rumblings about Google Wi-Fi first
occurred in early 2014 when it was reported that the company was contacting
regulators in existing and potential
Google Fiber communities about the
planning required to bring Wi-Fi to
those areas. Because Google already has
a foothold in these communities, it follows that these sites would serve as ideal
real-life test beds for new Wi-Fi techniques involving the utilization of typically unused wireless spectrum.
Wi-Fi-enabled devices usually operate on the 2.4GHz or 5GHz frequency, but Google intends to test its
service on a variety of alternative wireless spectrum outside of the traditional
spectrum. This mainly involves the use
of higher frequencies, which should be
relatively free of interference and could
help Google offer wireless speeds that
are even faster than Google Fiber. In
fact, some analysts think Google Wi-Fi
could be as much as six times faster
than Fiber, depending on deployment
and other specifics.
The challenge with deploying Wi-Fi
technology to communities is that its
often a complex and expensive process
with quite a few variables. There are
transmitters and sensors that require
uninterrupted and unobstructed paths
between them to achieve speeds that
are higher than Fiber. Google, however, is highly experienced in working
with unique infrastructure challenges;
the company faced numerous such
challenges with Fiber, which is part
of the reason why Google is looking
for new and interesting ways to deploy
Wi-Fi nationwide.
Main Goals Of Google Wi-Fi

Where the goals of Google Fiber are
to connect communities and give them
speed to super-fast wired broadband
Internet, the goal of Google Wi-Fi is
much loftier than that. With its Wi-Fi
initiative, Google is planning to not
only offer Wi-Fi access to desktops,
Google published this graphic to illustrate how much quicker someone could download 100 photos when using Google Fiber as opposed to a standard Internet connection.
laptops, or other devices in homes, but

also use a large-scale Wi-Fi network to
essentially turn Google into the next
wireless cell phone carrier and provide
people with Wi-Fi access regardless
of location. This idea also originated
in 2014, when rumors surfaced that
Google wanted to build a large Wi-Fi
network and offer free public wireless
Internet access around the world. And
although that could still be the ultimate
goal, Googles current agenda seems to
involve building on its Fiber foundation while looking for new ways to increase its reach beyond the supported
Fiber communities.
While talk of free public Wi-Fi has
gone somewhat quiet, talk of Google as
the next major wireless carrier is now
louder than ever. In fact, earlier this
year, Google made deals with T-Mobile
and Sprint to gain access to cellular
bandwidth in an effort to bolster its
networking efforts. The idea behind
these deals is to make it so that cellular
devices can access whichever available
network provides the best experience
automatically, without users having to
worry about switching from Wi-Fi to
cellular manually.
If you look at a map and consider
the manner in which Google has deployed Fiber, the project makes sense
not only from a community standpoint, but also from a future Wi-Fi
expansion perspective. With Fiber

in place in pockets all around the
country, Google could essentially deploy a massive wide-area network that
gives users access to high-speed Wi-Fi
on their phones, and then when they
leave the coverage area, the phone
could switch over to the traditional
cellular network. Essentially, Google is
building a Wi-Fi-based network for use
with smartphones and other devices
and then supplementing it with the cellular network for roaming.
There are roadblocks, however, that
complicate this ambitious endeavor.
Unavoidable geographic obstacles,
particularly in mountainous and rural
areas, can create network dead spots.
Youve probably read about Facebook
using drones to deliver Wi-Fi Internet
to hard-to-reach areas, but Google has
similar initiatives in the works. In fact,
the two companies competed to buy a
drone manufacturer, and Google won.
The possible outcome is that Google
could use drones to fly over certain remote regions in the U.S. and offer services in that area that Google Fiber or
Google Wi-Fi couldnt otherwise reach.
Google Fiber, Google Wi-Fi

& The Future Of Networking
Its important to keep in mind
that while Fiber is a proven concept,
Google Wi-Fi is still in its early stages
and therefore subject to a good deal

of speculation. Despite recent news
reports of Googles working out deals
with national wireless carriers for possible cellular service, there is no clear
idea of when or if the service will go
public. Still, all of the reports and rumors contribute to a greater sense that
Google possesses a definite interest in
becoming some kind of fixture in the
wireless business. Remember, Google
is also behind the Android operating
system, and it has manufactured its own
Nexus smartphones and tablets.
Running its own large-scale network
seems like a logical step for Google.
The company built its success on its
unrivaled search engine as well as its
SaaS and cloud-based solutions. And if
there is one thing we must remember
about Google, its that when the company develops a new idea, it tends to
build on it and do whatever it can to
make it a reality.
Granted, it has reversed course numerous times (consider the dissolution
of Google Reader and many Google
Labs experiments, or the more recent
reconsideration of Google Glass or
the overall structure of its social networking service, Google+), but it might
not be long before Google presents itself as a significant player in the wireless carrier market and shakes things
up for its competitors.
13
Think Visually With Your Online Marketing

SHOW (DONT TELL) YOUR MESSAGE TO PROSPECTIVE CUSTOMERS
A RECENT REPORT FROM CISCO predicts that online video content is set for
a 13-fold increase, accounting for nearly
three-quarters of the worlds mobile data
traffic by 2019.
Video traffic already consists of 55% of
the total mobile data traffic, so its clear
that video is a priority for apps and websites being viewed on tablets and smartphones. Graphics and video capabilities
on PCs continue to steadily improve, as
well. It has never been more important
that your website and online marketing
efforts feature a strong visual presence.
A Visual Evolution
Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab
has found that people often evaluate
the credibility of a website based on its
visual design. The images you use, the
layout, and even the typography matter.
Using graphics and visuals are the path
of least resistance to get consumers to see
your content, says Jason Knight, head
of planning at 180LA. For example, do
14
the graphics on your business websites

landing page effectively demonstrate the
services offered? What about evoking a
compelling response?
Social media websites, such as
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, offer
some of the better examples of how personal preferences have shifted toward visual content. Before social media, people
and organizations interacted via textheavy websites and blog posts that were
often hundreds of words long. Now, users
are often limited to hundreds of characters, while longer posts run the risk of
being ignored by those scanning through
their social media feed. Graphics and
video, on the other hand, can more rapidly provide information, often in a more
entertaining format. In short, visual content allows us to go from tell to show.
Traffic statistics tell a similar story. A
recent report from Shareaholic, for example, indicates that social networks
drove 31.24% of all traffic to websites.
Facebook itself accounted for 24.63%
traffic referrals, which was up from
15.44% in 2013. Overall, were relying less
on text-based searches, such as a search
engine query or directly visiting a website, and more on organic referrals from
our social networking tools. With that
in mind, you can leverage the power of
A GIF, meme, or six-second video can all deliver

your brands message, but with minimal effort by
a consumer.
JASON KNIGHT
Head Of Planning : 180LA
When videos address a real-time interest or need,

they can create an emotional appeal.
visual marketing on your website and in

your social media efforts to better reach
customers.
How Graphics
& Videos Communicate
Youve likely heard the phrase a picture
is worth 1,000 words, and the same concept is true with graphics and videos. The
ability to create an emotional appeal, and
to do so quickly, is one of the key elements
of visual marketing. When videos address
a real-time interest or need, they can create
an emotional appeal, says Brian Wong,
co-founder and CEO of Kiip. The images
you create and share with others can help
to both connect with customers and promote your businesss brand.
When it comes to creating videos that
will capture and engage your audience,
Wong gave us a few keys. First, the video
should be relevant to the content they
appear in. Secondly, the video should
appear to be serendipitous and without
incentive. For example, Kiip delivered
its own form of video advertising, called
Rewarded Video, inside the popular
mobile game Into the Dead, where the
ads showed a trailer for the popular TV
show The Walking Dead, says Wong.
The strong relation to the game content
helped the videos to receive a 77% viewthrough rate.
Visual content also holds appeal for
busy people who want to make the most
of their limited time. Theres a societal
pressure to keep up with news, and quick
visuals and graphics are an entertaining
condensation of information, says
Knight, who went on to note that A GIF,
meme, or six-second video can all deliver
your brands message, but with minimal
effort by a consumer. You can blow up
text and blend it with images, too, so you
can incorporate infographics, checklists,
tutorials, or slideshares to a website. Or
BRIAN WONG
CEO & Co-Founder : Kiip
maybe you just want to share an inspirational quote. The key is that you find a
quick way to share your message.
Whatever you choose to do, it should
be a seamless part of the online experience, whether it be an off-beat company
blog post connected to your website or
a critical video in the About Us section.
Of course, its also best if the customer
can stay on the website or product page
to view the visual marketing. Digital
platforms are increasingly incorporating
their own native video players and image
hosting, says Knight. Its important for
digital marketing to play naturally and
be contextual to each unique space.
Tell Your Story

Beyond branding, visuals can be used
to effectively convey your organizations
story, which is one of the easiest ways
to connect with your customers. Maybe
its a holiday greeting snapshot with employees and their families, or a social post
commemorating a company anniversaryaccompanied by a video that briefly
describes your organizations humble origins. Experts recommend that you follow
a traditional storytelling structure with
a beginning, middle, and end. Any good
story has some conflict, too, so dont shy
away from pointing out what your company has overcome to get where it is.
Social media, of course, works handin-hand with storytelling marketing efforts. Best of all, if readers like your
message, they might share it with others,
so the story is spread among trusted
THE VIDEO AND DISPLAY PERFORMANCE OF

TODAYS SMARTPHONES, TABLETS, AND PCS
HAVE CREATED NEW EXPECTATION LEVELS WHEN
IT COMES TO GRAPHICS AND VIDEO QUALITY.
members of potential customers peer

groups. Heres where quality content and
good storytelling come in. If its an engaging story, your message will likely be
distributed to many more people than just
those who follow you on social media. If
the story is mediocre, it wont hold peoples attention for long and theyll simply
move on or skip the video.
Technology, Social Media, & You

The video and display performance of
todays smartphones, tablets, and PCs have
created new levels of expectation when it
comes to graphics and video quality. Spend
some time working with graphic designers
and video production specialists to create
professional-looking content that will truly
have an impact on those youre trying to
reach. Check out some well-known (or
competitors) brands that excel at social
media to see how theyre doing things and
to get some ideas about how you can share
your own story.
Keep in mind that social videos are of
a different nature than video content developed for broadcast. Similar to the brief
text used in social media, the videos you
post shouldnt be more than a few minutes long, if that. Youll want to engage
the audience to ensure the best effect, and
part of the process is developing a concise
story that consumers will seek out. If you
want to present a longer narrative, break
up the videos into several small stories.
In addition to engagement, it can help
if the video or graphics you create are
participatory. For example, you can solicit input from viewers about the next
product or service youll offer. Or you can
offer a platform for viewers to post short
videos showing off products in use for a
chance to win prizes. With todays technology, youre really only limited by your
imagination and what the marketing team
can handle.
15
Millennials In The Workplace

JUST HOW TECH-SAVVY ARE MEMBERS OF GENERATION Y?
IN MANY RESPECTS, millennials are

among the most fascinating generations
in recent history, particularly for the wide
range of stereotypes, generalizations, and
statistics this group of individuals born
roughly between 1980 and the 2000s have
helped generate. While some dub millennials as entitled, lazy, unmotivated, and
lacking in work ethic and loyalty to employers, especially compared to previous
generations, others tout Generation Y
(another designation for millennials) as
one of the most creative, philanthropic,
racially diverse, accepting, innovative, and
resourceful generations.
Arguably the most well-educated U.S.
generation ever (63% reportedly hold a
bachelors degree), Generation Y is undoubtedly the most tech-savvy. As one
apt analogy goes, computers are to millennials what the TV was to their parents
or what the radio and books were to their
grandparents and great-grandparents in
terms of each group's primary media for
information. In short, millennials grew
16
up immersed in technology. They are

comfortable using it, and are considered
especially adept in the areas of personal
communications and social media.
It's exactly this sense of their technical
acumen that makes millennials enticing
to businesses. Increasingly, companies
are looking to cash in on the generation's
purported knowledge of social media and
communications to engage customers and
clients in new ways. How successful they
have been is debatable, however, as accounts
of millennials' personal tech skills failing
to translate into the results companies had
hoped for aren't uncommon. Worse, some
have labeled millennials as unprepared and
a poor fit for traditional business environments and systems. So just how tech-savvy
are millennials really? And how much
should this factor into hiring decisions? The
following explores the topic.
Raised On Technology
An ability to write code, use mobile devices effectively, and collaborate fluidly are
but a few of many traits many millennials

possess, and these are the skills that entice
companies. As a 2014 Pew Institute report
states, millennials are digital natives, or
the only generation that hasnt had to adapt
to newer technologies such as the Internet,
mobile technology, and social media.
As Claire Schooley, Forrester Research
principal analyst, says, millennials have
an intuitive sense of technology. If they
dont understand a process, they can play
around, learn about the technology, check
resources, and educate themselves on
features needed to do their job. In other
words, technology doesnt intimidate millennials. Older workers in general dont
do this investigation around a technology.
They tend to go to the manual or ask
someone or the help desk, Schooley says.
A 2014 Microsoft survey, meanwhile,
paints Gen Y as the always on generation, finding the average millennial uses 3.9
Internet-connected devices vs. 2.4 for a baby
boomer. Furthermore, Gen Y members are
twice as apt to use a smartphone to go online
(84% vs. 41%). Other research claims 81% of

millennials are on Facebook with a median
friend count of 250considerably higher
than other generations. Elsewhere, 63% of
millennials stay current on brands via social
networks; 46% rely on social media when
buying goods online; and 41% have bought
something via their smartphone.
In terms of communications and collaboration, Schooley says, millennials have been
in collaborative environments since elementary school. Group work and collaboration
is how children now learn in grade school
and continuing through higher education,
she says. Naturally, millennials expect to collaborate in the work environment, both faceto-face and virtually through social networks
approach, she says.
A recent study from a vendor of cloudbased secure collaboration spaces found
that workers ages 18 to 24 are overwhelmingly more put off by such situations as
wasting time searching for documents,
pinpointing who has specific information
about projects or tasks, and trying to locate
co-workers contact details. Such traits may
help explain why reportedly 27% of millennials are self-employed.
Matter Of Perspective
Although millennials possess numerous
traits companies covet, Gen Y workers are
also described, whether fairly or unfairly, as
being more concerned about their personal
growth than the companys prosperity. Even
though millennials are said to be entering
managerial positions in increasing numbers,
theyre sometimes dubbed as job hoppers
who lack the company loyalty of older generations. Rather than seek job advancement,
millennials are said to place more value on
broadening personal knowledge and skills,
and they wont hesitate to switch course to
do so.
Thanks to all of these impressions and
statistics, much has been written about companies needing to manage millennials differently. Millennials, for example, are said to
prefer transparent management that entails
frequent feedback, clearly defined tasks, and
frequent new assignments. They also expect
access to the latest technologies. Further,
many experts suggest millennials dont necessarily view success in financial terms.
Millennials want challenges, and they want to

understand the company vision and see products
and services they really believe in.
CLAIRE SCHOOLEY
Principal Analyst : Forrester Research
Schooley says if companies provide the

right tools and people resources, millennials will learn more, do more, and provide
creative and innovative ideas. A laundry
list of skills and hiring the person who
best meets these [qualifications] may not
get you the innovation youd like, she
says. Schooley says research indicates that
keeping millennials in one place requires
providing opportunities to grow in their
careers, a collaborative working environment (but also quiet space), technology
as good as what they have at home, and
a work atmosphere that's engaging and
embraces new ideas and suggestions.
Millennials want challenges, and they
want to understand the company vision
and see products and services they really
believe in, she says.
Some others hold different opinions on
managing millennials. David Wentworth,
Brandon Hall Group senior research analyst, for example, writes that if one were
using conventional wisdom to create the
ideal work environment for millennials, it
would resemble that summer you spent
living with your parents right after college:
sitting on the couch in your pajamas, dog
at your feet, wasting time on a shiny gadget
while your mom told you how proud she
is of you.
Wentworth also notes that while mobile devices may be native to millennials,
and some millennials are more skilled at
using them compared to their older counterparts, millennials certainly arent the
only people with their noses buried in
a mobile device most of the day. When
developing strategy around new learning
technologies, Wentworth advises not
focusing too heavily on catering to millennials. Instead, he suggests developing
strategies that implement new technologies
to make learning more engaging across the
organization, including millennials, but
not exclusive to them.
Gauging Digital Proficiency

Regarding technology adoption and
proficiency, Constellation Research doesnt
view millennial as an accurate distinction
because technological acuity isnt something bound by age. Constellation has created a framework that segments workers,
customers, and other groups according to
different levels of digital proficiency rather
than age.
In a report entitled Segmenting
Audiences By Digital Proficiency, Alan
Lepofsky, Constellation Research vice president and principal analyst, states its commonly believed companies must cater to
different generations differently, as each
has its own core values, expectations, and
goals. Thus, when planning how to engage
these groups, companies must customize
actions to each generation. While this may
be true in areas like compensation packages,
management techniques, and working environment, Lepofsky writes, age alone is not
an accurate way of determining how people
use technology like email, mobile devices,
and social networks.
Instead, the firm recommends combining a persons knowledge and comfort level with technology to determine
her digital proficiency. Lepofsky outlines
five primary types of digital proficiency
in which neither age nor birth generation
factor in. These include digital holdouts
(not very knowledgeable or comfortable
using new technologies); digital disengaged (knowledgeable but uncomfortable);
digital voyeurs (know a fair amount and
fairly comfortable); digital immigrants
(not the most tech-savvy but willing to try
something new); and digital natives (technology skilled and accept using new tools).
Knowing employees and customers
digital proficiency framework, Lepofsky
writes, can enable organizations to tailor
experiences they can relate to no matter
the decade they were born in.
17
ERP Enters The Cloud

WHAT ERP CAN DO NOW THAT IT ISNT TIED TO ON-PREMISES SOLUTIONS
ERP (ENTERPRISE RESOURCE plan-
KEY POINTS
ERP (enterprise resource planning) had success early on in the
manufacturing sector, but it has
grown to encompass many other
industries and serve many other
areas within organizations.
ERP solutions automate business
processes and provide a system
of record, so theyre often used for
improving efficiency, productivity,
and information integrity.
Although traditionally entrenched
as on-premises software, ERP is
increasingly available via the cloud.
As organizations investigate new
ERP solutions, its important to consider both cloud and on-premises
solutions or even a combination.
18
ning) is hardly a new kid on the block.

As one solution provider states, ERPs
origins trace back to the early 1960s, with
implementations in the manufacturing
sector. The first full-fledged ERP solutions emerged in the 1990s with a broader
scope encompassing multiple areas within
a company. These solutions are similar to
what we are familiar with today.
Despite the consistency within ERPs
lengthy history, however, current solutions feel new in many respects. This is
true partly because ERP solutions are increasingly embracing new aspects of mobility, BI (business intelligence), and other
modern business technologies.
Particularly noteworthy in this regard is a current shift away from solutions designed for on-premises ERP
solutions to solutions and applications residing in the cloud. This change
is dramatically impacting both ERP
customers and the old guard of traditional
on-site solution providers. This article
details the changes cloud-based ERP is

prompting, the benefits companies may
experience using cloud-based offerings,
and why companies continue to use ERP
in general.
The ABCs Of ERP

Pinpointing a universal definition for
ERP isnt a simple task. Seemingly all entities with a stake in ERP have their own
notion of what ERP entails. Broadly, however, ERP is on-premises or cloud-based
software that enables the management
of business processes encompassing various areas within an organization. The
areas most commonly affiliated with ERP
solutions include manufacturing, sales,
marketing, product development, human
resources, supply chain, and operations.
One ERP provider specifically describes ERP as improving and automating
key components of the business, such as
by bringing business processes together
to enable collaboration, decision-making,
and productivity improvements. Another
provider views the main thrust of ERP as

creating a single, central bank of information that different business units can tap
into to execute functions and enhance the
flow of data across the company.
When ERP was first introduced in
the early 1990s, the biggest problem
being solved was integrating the different
areas of an accounting department: financials, payables, receivables, inventory management, etc., says Wayne
Schulz, founder of Schulz Consulting
and member of 90 Minds, a group of
independent ERP consultants. Early on,
these disparate areas werent always integrated well (or at all), and organizations commonly employed systems that
were heavy with inventory but lacking in
general ledgers, he says. Todays ERP is
almost always fully integrated, starting
with general ledgers and reaching all the
way to inventory and project management, Schulz explains. Furthermore,
specialized integrations, such as EDI
(electronic data interchange) and WMS
(warehouse management systems) also
exist and are often seamlessly integrated
into popular ERP systems, Schulz says.
Frank Scavo, president of Strativa and
noted blogger at The Enterprise System
Spectator, says ERP systems are truly
foundational systems that automate
business processes and provide a system
of record. Therefore, most benefits of
ERP are found in areas of operational
efficiency, productivity, and information
integrity, according to Scavo. Despite
the fact that ERP stands for enterprise
resource planning, he says, ERP systems
havent really been very successful on the
planning side of the business. In a sense,
what ERP solutions were designed for, or
at least what they promised, ended up
not being so much what theyre used for.
ERP systems mostly are transactional
systems, he says.
Although ERP systems are good at recording what has happened, Scavo says,
planning for the future typically requires
systems that are situated outside of ERP
and use transactional data from ERP to
generate what-if scenarios, analytics, and
other types of financial and operational
plans. In a sense, Scavo adds, people
[Once data is extracted from an ERP system to, say, a

spreadsheet], the end user is often quite comfortable
creating reports, designing queries, or using new tools . .
. to create customized reports that previously might have
required a programmer and many thousands of dollars.
WAYNE SCHULZ
Founder : Schulz Consulting
have lower expectations today for ERP

than they did 20 or 30 years ago.
ERP In 2015
Scavo reasons that if the ERP systems
developed in the 1990s are still being
supported, theyd actually have good
functionality still, simply because theyve
had time to mature. Systems developed
in recent years may not have the breadth
of functionality of older systems, but
they are much more intuitive, he adds.
Most of the newer systems were built
for the cloud and are much better at supporting mobile devices, he says. So if
you put newer systems up against older
systems, most people would choose the
newer systems just based on the user experience. The functionality gaps, though,
arent as easy to perceive until you actually start using the system.
Similarly, Nick Castellina, research
director at Aberdeen Group, says solutions today are more usable and flexible
to business changes. They also feature
more industry-specific functionality.
Executives may be surprised that they
dont need to do as much customization
as they thought, he says. Schulz agrees
that modern ERP solutions have a much
broader selection of integrations, with
both solution providers and third parties
creating offerings that often integrate
seamlessly into existing systems. For example, there are reporting tools that can
extract data from an ERP system into,
say, a spreadsheet. From there, the end
user is often quite comfortable creating
reports, designing queries, or using new
tools . . . to create customized reports
that previously might have required a
programmer and many thousands of
dollars, Schulz says.
In general, currently available ERP

systems are considered more robust
than those in the recent past. Castellina
says businesses are using them more
fully across their organizations. A company implementing ERP today, he says,
should expect benefits such as improved
visibility into data, as well as tangible
improvements in time-to-decision,
complete and on-time delivery, internal
schedule compliance, and inventory accuracy, among other areas.
In short, Schulz says, most companies have moved beyond the idea of
looking to ERP solutions to balance the
books for their accountantsthe focus
of many early ERP implementations.
Today, companies looking to update
ERP are most often looking for more industry-specific solutions. A lumber yard,
for example, might discard its generic
ERP solution in favor of a solution designed for its niche.
Into The Cloud

Mobility and the increasing digitization of business are helping shape
todays ERP solutions and will only
continue to do so. Specifically, vendors
and enterprises are recognizing the importance for employees to securely access ERP systems from anywhere. In
terms of digitalization, meanwhile,
Gartner noted in a 2014 report the role
ERP and ERP applications will increasingly handle, stating that within many
enterprises, ERP has become a slowmoving oil tanker thats expensive to
maintain and slow to turn but thats still
vital to business operations. Gartner
projects that by 2018, companies that
have renovated their core ERP successfully will achieve a 75% improvement
19
in IT response agility and cost-to-value

outcomes.
Arguably, nothing is impacting ERP
now as strongly as cloud computing.
Numerous sources underscore the point
that adoption of cloud-based ERP solutions and applications is steadily
climbing, including among midsize and
smaller companies. Castellina says were
getting closer to the point where cloud
and on-premises ERP are considered an
equal amount. Helping drive this adoption are cloud-enabled cost benefits and
reduced need for internal IT resources.
Furthermore, Castellini notes that enterprise concerns about security and downtime related to the cloud are beginning to
fade as cloud service reliability continues
to improve.
Scavo says a shift from on-premises to
cloud-based ERP is definitely happening.
Nearly every decision concerning ERP
selection Scavo is involved in these days
is for cloud ERP, or at least for deploying
ERP in a hosted environment, he says.
Companies are tired of investing in onpremises infrastructure and having to
maintain applications, he says. They
would rather put that money into more
ASCENT OF HYBRID ERP

According to research firm Gartner,
the future of ERP (enterprise resource
planning) lies largely in the realm of
hybrid ERP, which combines multiple
on-premises functions with a larger
cloud-based ERP solution. In a January
2014 report, Gartner forecast that by
2018, at least 30% of service-oriented
companies will have moved most of
their ERP software to the cloud. In the
same report, Gartner predicted that
most organizations will shift from onpremises to a hybrid ERP approach by
2019, but cautioned that companies
must make sure the cloud portion
provides adequate differentiation from
the on-premises portion if they want
to enjoy significant cost benefits from
taking a hybrid approach.
20
Companies are tired of investing in on-premises

infrastructure and having to maintain applications.
They would rather put that money into more
value-added support for their users.
FRANK SCAVO
President : Strativa
value-added support for their users.

Additionally, many companies have had
such a positive experience with cloudbased CRM (customer relationship
management) or HCM (human capital
management) initiatives, theyre asking
why the same cant be true of ERP in the
cloud, Scavo says.
Schulz also agrees the shift to cloudbased ERP is occurring, noting that a demand among companies looking for more
flexibility in how they can access their
ERP software is driving the movement.
Many companies have workers that may
be based out of their homes for part of
the week, and having an easy way to remotely access ERP is now a very frequent
requirement, he says. Additionally, software publishers are partially responsible
for the shift. When was the last time you
went into a software store and bought a
boxed software solution? How many recently purchased software packages have
you loaded to your computer and run
from your desktop? he says. For many
of us, the answer is not recently and very
few. For end users, however, the prospect of publishers developing solutions
for the cloud and paying less attention to
on-premises solutions could mean fewer
options in the world of ERP.
One of the most significant benefits of
using ERP as a service is that in many cases
a company can discontinue usage with
little notice, Schulz says. Additionally, licensing costs are often perceived as being
lower because there is less up-front payment required. (Whether there is actually
cost savings depends on how much it costs
to subscribe to a cloud-based solution over
a certain period of time vs. how much it
would cost to make a one-time payment
for physical software and licenses plus upgrade costs whenever the publisher releases
new versions of the software.) One strong

benefit to using ERP as a service is that
the vendor takes on support concerns and
software updates can be automatic.
Scavo considers the greatly reduced
burden of handling version upgrades for
enterprises as the biggest benefit to using
cloud-based ERP. Some cloud vendors
push updates to customers without any
customer interaction, he says. In other
cases, the cloud vendor will give the customer a window of time in which they
must update. Generally, though, customers of cloud ERP stay up-to-date to a
much greater degree with upgrades and
releases than they likely would with traditional on-premises ERP, he says. So, you
dont get into the situation where you are
years behind in updates and where an upgrade is like a whole new implementation.
Although increased customization
is a benefit of many on-premises ERP
solutions on the market today, obtaining customized solutions using
cloud-based ERP can be more difficult, says Castellina. Using a ERP as a
service can also mean that there is no
option to stop paying for maintenance
but continue using an unsupported ERP
version, Schulz says; this is possible
with installed software. Once you stop
paying your access to hosted/cloud,
Schulz explains, ERP will likely go away.
Also, cloud-based ERP systems are
generally newer, meaning developers
may not have had time to build out and
incorporate as much functionality compared to vendors offering traditional
ERP products. Scavo says there are exceptions, but for some industries, you
may not find what you need if you only
look at cloud ERP. That said, its only a
matter of time before cloud ERP vendors
catch up, he says.
Executives may be surprised that they dont need to

do as much customization as they thought [with todays
ERP solutions].
Modern Choices
Among the keys to effectively
choosing, implementing, and
using ERP solutions is sticking
with market leaders and considering the total cost of ownership,
Schulz says. A cloud solution
may involve lower up-front costs,
but there may be additional fees
for extra features, and discontinuing use of the cloud solution may
not be as easy as you think, he says.
Generally, Schulz recommends
that enterprises pilot test a given solution before buying. This should
involve configuring the test version
and running transactions through the
system, ensuring to involve members
NICK CASTELLINA
Research Director : Aberdeen Group
throughout the company. Doing so

can help uncover features that the
solution is missing. To that end,
Castellina says, the most important
criteria in choosing a solution is ensuring that it possesses the functionality the enterprise needs to support
its business presently and into the
future as it grows.
MANY COMPANIES HAVE WORKERS THAT MAY

BE BASED OUT OF THEIR HOMES FOR PART
OF THE WEEK, AND HAVING AN EASY WAY TO
REMOTELY ACCESS ERP IS NOW A VERY
FREQUENT REQUIREMENT, SAYS SCHULZ.
Reduce Down-Time.
Reduce Waste.
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Ultimately, Scavo says, discussions

about how to choose an ERP solution
have been going on for more than 20
years. Things really havent changed,
he says. Companies still need top management support, a structured process,
to define requirements before talking
to vendors, to dedicate resources to the
implementation, and to treat ERP as a
business process and change management initiative, not a technical
exercise, Scavo says. Such requirements were just as true in 1985 as
they are in 2015, he says. Nothing
has changed in this regard, even
with cloud ERP, Scavo says.
GO DEEP
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is your idea of well-spent leisure time, CPU is the magazine for
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Enterprise Mobility In 2015

A GLIMPSE INTO THE TRENDS & TRANSITIONS SHAPING WORKPLACE MOBILITY
ALTHOUGH MOBILITY HAS long been a

fixture of enterprise business, changes
continue to occur, making enterprise mobility a moving target. The laptop and
tablet markets, for example, may seem
stable at this point, but new devices, such
as innovative takes on the hybrid laptop/
tablet, continue to prompt decisionmakers to reevaluate their potential purchases. And now that smartphones have
become a common business tool, mobility
management strategies and solutions
are changing as smartphone capabilities
evolve. To gain perspective on where enterprise mobility is headed, we spoke with
numerous experts.
Mobile Devices
Expect to see a greater number and
variety of mobile devices to enter enterprises in 2015. In addition to smartphones,
tablets, and hybrid laptop/tablets, look
for connected wearables (smart glasses,
smart watches, etc.), televisions, and cars.
Christian Kane, Forrester Research ana-
22
lyst, says he believes the IoT (Internet of

Things) will begin to get classified a bit
more by device types, and people will focus
on the device types that can improve their
[businesses]. Examples include connected
industrial devices in manufacturing and
more wearables in health care, he says.
More accessories capable of pulling data,
says Rob Enderle, Enderle Group principal
analyst, means a stronger emphasis on devising policy concerning what is and isnt
allowed as a recurring process.
Mike Battista, Info-Tech Research
Group senior manager, says wearables
are only a small part of a larger trend
toward more variety in mobile devices.
The pattern weve seen is that new mobile devices rarely replace old ones, he
says. Businesses will have to be ready for
more variety with more device-agnostic
management tools and policies and developing for a wide range of form factors
and input methods. Battista says the intersection between mobile devices and the
IoT could potentially really change the
world, and well see the beginnings of it in

the next year. Even something as simple
as controlling lights from a smart watch
could make people realize the world
around them is becoming a lot more intelligent and connected, he says.
BYOD, CYOD, COPE & More

Opinions about BYOD (bring your
own device) range from believing it will
grow slowly to believing it will reach mainstream status this year. Chris Silva, Gartner
research director, says a 2014 Gartner report found that by 2020, organizations that
have shifted to a BYOD-centric smartphone
strategy will outnumber those with a corporate-owned smartphone strategy. The
tipping point comes in 2017 when BYODcentric organizations narrowly outnumber
those holding fast to corporate-owned device strategies, but the gap widens significantly by 2020 based on the stated plans of
our [reports] CIO respondents, he says.
Colin Gibbs, Peak Mobile Insights
founder and principal, says he believes
The IoT (Internet of Things) will begin to get classified

a bit more by device types, and people will focus on the
device types that can improve their [businesses].
CHRISTIAN KANE
Analyst : Forrester Research
that businesses will continue experimenting with BYOD and other strategies for deploying, managing, and
securing mobile devices, and he expects
an increase in top-down, corporate-led
deployments, particularly for the next
generation of connected devices designed for specific business use cases.
Battista expects BYOD growth to
slow, with many businesses opting for
more freedom on company-issued devices. Although BYOD remains a fit
for many organizations, he says, good
options to enable personal use of company devices now exist without giving
up too much control. Kane, meanwhile,
says he anticipates BYOD will reach
mainstream status, meaning companies will have more formal ways to support BYOD for more employees. Not
every employee will use his own device,
however, thus Kane sees mobile policies maturing to the point they detail
when BYOD applies and when CYOD
(choose your own device) applies.
Applications
Among enterprise mobilitys various
components, Battista views apps as the
most unpredictable. For example, he
says, within a matter of weeks an app
can go from one that nobody knows
about to the talk of the tech world to
pundits declaring it dead. That said,
Battista believes a killer app for wearable
devices will likely emerge this year that
seems silly initially but quickly catches
on, is copied, and has the effect of slapping a computer on a sizeable chunk
of the mainstreams wrists by this time
next year.
Eventually, Gibbs believes, the enterprise-centric apps market will be
enormous, though it will struggle in
the short term due to security concerns
and a lack of interoperability between
apps and legacy IT systems. Similarly,

Kane expects more companies will create
and purchase mobile apps for their employees. Ensuring as many applications
as possible are available to employees is
incredibly important, he says. Moving
forward, Enderle notes the importance
of creating policies and processes that
better separate usage of personal and
business equipment, particularly on
company-owned equipment, including
to lower the attack surface for malware.
Silva says as mobile strategies mature, companies will see a much larger,
expanding catalog of enterprise apps.
The advent of custom applications
will help more role-specific use cases
for mobile to emerge, he says. Thats
driving a need to have consistent policy
and security in place due to the amount
of sensitive data these apps and tools

will likely access. As app numbers grow
and creating custom-developed apps
takes hold, Silva says, mobile management needs are shifting to app-centric
controls. Managing the entire device or
even locking down its functionality isnt
enough for some businesses, he says.
Controls at the app level are driving renewed interest in MAM (mobile application management) and usage of EMM
(enterprise mobility management) tools
alongside MAM tools to create and customize enterprise apps stores to showcase and distribute company-specific
custom apps, he says.
Mobility Management
Expect EMM solutions to continue to
expand in capability this year. Kane says
EMM solutions will implement better
data security options and identify management or unified IAM (identity and
access management). Kane also expects
more talk concerning EMM solutions
managing wearables and a bigger push
to unify EMM with more traditional
PC management and virtualization
MOBILITY CHALLENGES
Todd Landry, corporate
vice president of product
and marketing strategy,
at JMA Wireless (www
.jmawireless.com), says
organizations have tried
for some time to apply
add-on mobile applications and connectivity
to in-house telephony
or UC (unified communications) systems,
only to discover theyre
complex, dont really
support full and easy
mobility, and are tied to
an old-school means of
communications. This is
true even if cloud-based,
systems are generally
still based on traditional
phone systems and have

little to no interworking
with the mobile infrastructure, he says. Other
systems try to leverage
the Wi-Fi network, which
Landry says is inherently
bad in terms of roaming
and quality unless highly
engineered, and even
then requires special
hardware and applications on the mobile.
Competitive, agile
enterprises are realizing
that employees arent
using desk-based fixed
phones but are using
mobile devices predominately, he says. Theyre
also seeing that in-house
extensions are things

of the past, and people
communicate with name
lists that are always at
their mobile fingertips,
he says. Enterprises can
preserve capital for telephone networks, servers
and telephone switches,
desktop phones, etc.,
and redirect that money
to ensure internal mobile
coverage is delivered
in the form of a reliable
venue cell that provides
employees maximum
coverage and capacity
to utilize mobile devices,
whether either employeeowned or company-provided, Landry says.
23
tools. Choosing an EMM tool based

on its strengths will increasingly entail
evaluating capabilities in the higherlevel functions of MAM and MCM [mobile content management] to choose a
solution that will grow with the business, Silva says.
Elsewhere, Battista says, EMM vendors are increasingly moving toward
solutions that manage more than mobile devices, such as full desktop OSes
and IoT devices. EMM could become
a subset of a larger suite, he says, the
way MDM became a feature of EMM.
Ultimately, Enderle says, given that the
attack surface for mobile devices is becoming bigger than for PCs, its imprudent for organizations to avoid taking
at least some control over mobile devices, if only to assure better security.
Workspaces
As mobile access to apps and data increases, Kane expects more employees
will work from non-desk-based locations
AN AGING WORKFORCE
Jeanine Sterling, Frost & Sullivan
principal analyst, says a continuing
aging mobile workforce within the
field service sector may mean mass
retirements and a wave of new,
very green replacements occurring in the future. More adventurous
companies will step into this breach
with mobile technology, she says.
For example, companies might
experiment with smart glasses as
a new training tool. An older, deskbased repair technician no longer
interested or able to work in the field
could provide assistance and advice
to a colleague equipped with smart
glass that lets her remotely transmit
video, images, and questions back.
The benefits? The newbie gets
trained, a group of experienced pros
are retained on staff as the Baby
Boomer transition plays out, and the
customer receives top-notch service
and fast time-to-first-fix, she says.
24
Wearables are only a small part of a larger trend

toward more variety in mobile devices. The pattern
weve seen is that new mobile devices rarely replace
old ones. Businesses will have to be ready for more
variety with more device-agnostic management tools
and policies and developing for a wide range of form
factors and input methods.
MIKE BATTISTA
Senior Manager : Info-Tech Research Group
and use mobile devices for work more

frequently. Therefore, expect employee
demands to have whats needed to work
on the platform/device of their choice to
accelerate. Silva says currently more real
work is being done on smartphones/
tablets. Many organizations are starting
with field sales and services teams, enabling information-gathering activities
via a tablet issued as the primary device
for the user, he explains.
Jeanine Sterling, Frost & Sullivan
principal analyst, expects more mobile
workers (particularly field-based sales
and service personnel) will enjoy the
benefits of predictive analytics and AI.
All that big data is finally being put to
work with mobile apps and algorithms
that create personal assistants or help
build winning sales proposals or provide an early heads-up before a piece
of equipment breaks down, she says.
Mobile workers, she says, will need to
trust the technology and adapt to the
new opportunities presented, which will
make their jobs easier, free up more
time to connect with customers, and
forge stronger business relationships.
While plenty of traditional stationary
workers will remain, Battista expects
more offices to be built around workers
being productive from any location and
possibly from any device. This will lead
to such changes as open office spaces
without assigned desks, he says, meaning
potentially millions in real estate savings,
so I think its inevitable, Battista says.
Todd Landry, corporate vice president
of product and marketing strategy, with
JMA Wireless (www.jmawireless.com),
says enterprises that have already made

the leap into mobile technology realize the need to provide additional inbuilding or on-campus infrastructure to
ensure mobile tools work reliably within
the facilitysomething JMA Wireless
has enabled in hundreds of venues via
new infrastructure.
Cloud Computing & Services

Many experts believe cloud computing and mobility go hand in hand.
Kane says they each drive need for the
other. Battista believes the cloud is
key to many mobility trends. Broadly,
as the cloud becomes a default deployment model and more core infrastructure moves to the cloud, he says, ITs
role will change. Positively, this can
increase the overall pace of innovation
due to many tedious IT functions essentially being outsourced to the cloud
and freeing up IT to innovate what can
be done with technology vs. keeping
it running.
Silva says theres a growing trend
toward companies embracing cloudbased solutions, including for EMM
tools. Here, adoption is growing across
various company sizes and vertical industries due to the ease of implementation and ease in updating and operating
consoles deployed as SaaS (software as
a service). On the MCM side, he says,
either as part of or in addition to an
EMM tool, we see mobile driving a lot
of interest in enterprise file sync and
share solutions to provide access to rich
content from mobile platforms for users
in the field and on the move.
Your Device Can Help You Find That

SMARTPHONES, TABLETS & PCS ARE USING YOUR LOCATION IN NEW & INTERESTING WAYS
KEY POINTS
The GPS receiver in your PC,
smartphone, or tablet computer
can intercept signals from satellites
orbiting the Earth to pinpoint your
location.
Although GPS technology is
generally the most accurate means
of determining a persons position
(within about 10 meters), it may not
be accessible in all areas.
Because you carry a mobile device
with you often, geolocation data
can be used to much greater effect
through mobile apps and geolocation
features in your smartphone or tablet.
You can turn off a Web browsers
location discovery capabilities if youre
concerned about privacy.
THE MANTRA OF location, location,

location isnt just for real estate agents
anymore. Whether its your desktop
PCs Web browser or your mobile device, its likely that youve run into a
Web page or mobile app that asks permission to access your location. There
are several good reasons why you should
provide your location. If Im near the
Eiffel Tower searching for restaurants,
I most likely dont want results for fine
dining in Paris, Texas, for example,
says Steffen Sorrell, a research analyst
with Juniper Research. In this article,
we explore the most common uses of
location-based information and examine
the ways in which technology can gather
your position.
Geolocation Options
PCs, tablets, and smartphones can
pinpoint a persons location in a variety
of ways. Among the first methods that
comes to most peoples minds is GPS
(Global Positioning System), as nearly
all current smartphones and tablets

have a GPS receiver. The GPS receiver
in your device intercepts signals from
some of the 30-plus satellites orbiting
Earth. Your device can determine your
position by calculating the distance to
the satellites and the time it took for the
messages to arrive.
Manufacturers have also added
technology to mobile devices that improves how quickly the GPS receiver
responds. Technology such as Assisted
GPS was developed as a result of the
need to speed up the time in which a
positional fix was given, says Sorrell.
Mobiles have catalyzed a number of
advancements, including geopositioning
of wireless access points to enable mobile positioning where GPS might not
be available, he adds. GPS is exceptionally accurate and can determine location
within 10 meters.
Another common way in which a
mobile device can find its position is
through cell tower triangulation. By
25
Technology such as Assisted GPS was developed as

a result of the need to speed up the time in which a
positional fix was given. Mobiles have catalyzed a number
of advancements, including geo-positioning of wireless
access points to enable mobile positioning where GPS
might not be available.
STEFFEN SORRELL
Research Analyst : Juniper Research
identifying the signals from cell towers

that are within range and roughly
gauging the strength of those signals, the
device can determine its approximate
location. Accuracy is better in urban
environments because there are more
cell towers to compare against. As you
might guess, GPS is more accurate than
cellular for location. However, when
you are situated among skyscrapers and
large structures or traveling through a
tunnel, your mobile device might switch
to cell tower triangulation when the GPS
signal is unavailable.
While weve examined location technologies for mobile devices up until
now, there are also a few ways you can
use a traditional PC to determine your
position. If your computer uses a Wi-Fi
connection, a Web browser or locationaware program can analyze the location
of an access point to determine your
whereabouts. One downside of Wi-Fibased location is that a device may not
always be within range
of a Wi-Fi network, or
the network may be
password protected,
as is often the case in
many public places.
Wi-Fi location can be
accurate within 50 to
500 meters.
Its also possible for a
PC to pinpoint your position through a wired
connection. In this case,
the location-aware app
or Web browser can use
your PCs IP address, a
unique identifier provided by your Internet
26
service provider, to detect your location.

IP address locations typically arent pinpoint accurate, because the geolocation
typically lists a town or ZIP code. They
can also be inaccurate because some
people connect through a proxy line or
some other encrypted tunnel, such as
VPN (virtual private network), which
masks a users location.
Location-Aware Websites
Knowing there are numerous ways
for apps and programs to discover a persons location, you may be wondering
what the data is used for. Put simply,
it gives the user a more personalized,
relevant experience to their habits,
says Daniel Welch, Ipsos mobile leadAsia PAC. This is the age of context.
Geolocation is the easiest gateway into a
contextually rich, tailored experience for
consumers.
For example, lets say that you visit
a weather website and want the latest
forecast. When the website prompts you

to share your location, clicking Yes will
save you from having to manually input
your city or ZIP code in the future.
Another good example would be when
you order a pizza via your desktop PC.
If you allow the pizza chains website
to access your location, it can help you
select the store nearest to you to ensure
the delivery will get to you as quickly
as possible.
In general, search engines and websites
with retail locations will attempt to make
use of your position. Bing and Google,
for example, offer tools for local weather,
turn-by-turn navigation, news updates,
and shopping searches that make use of
device geolocation. Companies with retail locations can direct you to find the
closest store. Geolocation may also be
utilized by multimedia websites. The
media service Hulu, for instance, will
limit content depending on the region,
because some content is available only in
the United States.
Geolocation is a feature thats built
into most Web browsers, including
Internet Explorer, Mozillas Firefox,
and Googles Chrome, and the location awareness is enabled by default.
Typically, a website will ask a user to
share his location before accessing the
location-aware features. If youre concerned about privacy, its possible to
turn off the Web browsers location discovery capabilities.
The TripAdvisor app recommends

places of interest near you and helps
you find them.
Mobile Location Technology

Because people rely on mobile devices
to find places and things when they are
out and about, many apps take advantage of LBS (location-based services).
According to Sorrel, Juniper Research
has determined that location is most
commonly requested in Navigation,
Social, Tracking, Local Search &
Discovery and Other app categories, including some augmented reality apps,
games, entertainment and utility apps.
Because of their purpose, navigation apps rely completely on real-time
location to function as expected. The
accuracy of GPS receivers enables
a navigation app to provide turn-byturn directions as you drive or walk.
Mobiles enable hyperlocal positioning
in real-time, which opens the door for
a number of things where location is a
factor: comparing fuel prices while Im
on the road, finding my way around an
unfamiliar office block, seeing which of
my friends are close by to meet up, and
so on, says Sorrell.
Monitoring your movement via GPS
isnt just for directions, either. Runners
and hikers often track their progress
and physical activity using a mapping
app and the GPS connections on their
smartphones. There are also a variety
of apps available that let people share a
real-time location, so you can see their
ETA or meet up with them at a particular destination. Travel apps, such
Geolocation data provides a great opportunity to help

marketers passively identify what we like, when we like
it, and provide us with only the meaningful experiences
we need.
DANIEL WELCH
Mobile Lead-Asia PAC : Ipsos
as TripAdvisor and Citysearch, can

provide you with recommendations for
nearby locations, and the recommendations can change as you move around.
Youve also probably used a recommendation app such as Yelp or Zagat, which
provides reviews and ratings of nearby attractions.
Certain social networking features
that rely on a persons current location
also have broad appeal. Users tend to
use geolocation in order to advertise
their instantaneous location to others
on the network. Sharing your location
via social networking might be just the
start of something bigger. Geolocation
could mean that social networks
push stories about the areas in which
someone is living and working, says
Welch. In the past, it was only possible
to layer in stories [that] your friends
have liked and shared on social networking sites, but with geolocation the
possibilities are far greater.
Welch explains how this might work.
Imagine reading a local news story
about ABC chili spot, then being shown
Yelp is an example of a recommendation app that can help users find nearby businesses and attractions.
which of your social network connections rated it, being sent a coupon
to try a cup for 50% off because you
were in the area, and then being able
to share that experience with your networkshowing whats important to
you, he says. The end result is that
youll be more easily connected with
people, places, and things around you.
As Welch notes, When we feel something is really simple and tailored, it
feels like we are on the inside, part of
the collective in crowd.
The Future Of Geolocation

As mentioned previously, LBS may
soon be integrated with mobile marketing. The experience will become
more personalized, says Sorrell. And
were seeing the beginnings of that
through contextually aware applications. For instance, if youve downloaded an app for a retail store or
service, a coupon or survey might be
sent to your smartphone when you pass
by or enter the store. This type of location monitoring will allow apps and
your smartphone to push offers and
other content directly to you.
There are some things that will have
to happen to make LBS more useful.
For example, with geo-triggering and
beacon technology, people need to
have their location servicesGPS or
Bluetoothswitched on at all times
and have a compatible app downloaded
on their mobile devices, says Welch.
There is a big element of trust involved to make it work, such as carefully
gauging when is appropriate to send
consumers marketing communications,
and avoiding going as far as annoying
them. Only time will tell if businesses
will be able to use the location-based
marketing effectively.
27
Mobile Devices & Payments

IS THE BUSINESS OF MOBILE PAYMENTS ABOUT TO PICK UP?
MAKING TRANSACTIONS USING mobile devices is a very hot topic currently

due largely to Apples new iPhone 6
and Apple Pay system. As Nathalie
Reinelt, Aite Group analyst, writes, following Apple Pays introduction, everyone outside the payments industry
began talking about mobile payment "as
if it were a new, groundbreaking invention. In actuality, mobile payments
have been around for years. Still, Apple
Pay has undeniably stepped up excitement and curiosity about mobile payments in general, which the following
overview explores.
Common Practice
Today, consumers have several options for making purchases and paying
bills using their mobile devices, including remote- and proximity-based
options that cover browser- and message-based purchases, retailers own
apps, and mobile wallet approaches
enabling contactless or tap-and-pay
28
methods. Overall, however, making

payments from a mobile device is still
an emerging practice. For example, despite excitement over Apple Pay, reportedly just 220,000 stores were supporting
the system initially. At the time, that
was about 2.4% of the roughly 7 million
to 9 million U.S. merchants that accept
credit cards. The remaining businesses
lacked POS (point-of-sale) systems that
work with NFC (near-field communication), the technology upon which Apple
Pay is based.
That said, growth of mobile payments does look encouraging. For example, Nielsen recently reported that
40% of mobile wallet users in the U.S.
rely on mobile payments as their primary mode of making payments.
Juniper Research expects mobile payments to make up the biggest chunk of
the $4.9 trillion in global digital payments its predicting by 2019. Juniper
also expects global mobile payments
will reach $630 billion this year, while
Aite Group predicts U.S. mobile payments will reach $214 billion by 2015.
Elsewhere, Juniper projects 300 million consumers globally will make contactless payments via mobile devices
by 2017, up from 110 million in 2013.
Additionally, about 20% of mobile devices will possess mobile wallet functionality by 2018, up from less 10% in
2013, Juniper predicts.
Compared with making payments via
a desktop or notebook computer, doing
so via a mobile device is essentially becoming common practice, thanks in part
to smartphone accessibility, says Reinelt.
Aite Group research indicates consumers
prefer to transact using those devices
most accessible to them, Reinelt says.
Dr. Windsor Holden, Juniper Research
head of forecasting and consultancy, says
theres been a pronounced migration
from the desktop to couch commerce,
whereby consumers purchase goods
while watching the TV rather than sitting at their [desktops].
For now, though, Sandy Shen, Gartner

research director, says mobile purchases/
payments are still in the early stages in
mature markets and dont necessarily
give consumers better value than existing
options. There are a few exceptions,
such as Starbucks mobile app, which
allows people to pay from the app and
get the food from the store, she says.
Retailers are the primary player in mobile payment services in which payment
is included in a branded app, she says.
Starbucks app is probably the most successful example in mature markets, she
says. Reportedly, Starbucks processed
about 3 million transactions via its app
in its first two months.
Reinelt says merchants are learning
they can best impact shopping cart
abandonment rates on mobile devices by
providing a merchant-specific app thats
focused on user experience. Apps enable
storing a credit card for easy transactions, she says. Eventually, Reinelt does
believe buyers will begin suffering from
app fatigue and settle on apps they
use most often. While app usage is well
below mobile payments made online
with retailers, Holden says, its worth
noting that mobile payments overall still
account for a significant minority of
sales at selected retailers.
The Apple Influence

Launched in October, Apple Pay is
the talk of the mobile payments world
currently. James Wester, IDC research
director, global payments, writes that
Apples unique position as device
maker, OS provider, and online retailer
enables it to impact how mobile payments will evolve like few other companies can.
In short, Apple Pay uses NFC to wirelessly communicate with POS terminals
that support NFC, with a user verifying
a wireless purchase via fingerprint on the
iPhones Touch ID sensor. Other mobile
wallet implementations may include use
of an app, password, PIN, and bar or QR
code scans.
Reinelt writes that Apple Pay is intriguing because its the first deployment
of issuer tokenization, a tokenization
[There has been a] pronounced migration from the

desktop to couch commerce, whereby consumers
purchase goods while watching the TV rather than
sitting at their [desktops].
DR. WINDSOR HOLDEN
Head Of Forecasting & Consultancy : Juniper Research
framework EMV (Europay, MasterCard,

and Visa) introduced that enables payment networks to provision tokens
on behalf of participating issuers.
Often called chip and PIN technology,
EMV is a global standard for credit cards
with integrated chips thats used to authenticate transactions from chip-enabled
cards. EMV also supports contactless
credit card reading via NFC-enabled payment and terminal systems. Already in
use around the world, EMV is considered
safer than cards with magnetic strips and
deemed an effective weapon against card
fraud. Unlike magnetic strip cards, an
EMV-supported card creates a unique
code for each transaction that cant be
used again.
Reinelt adds that Apple Pay also provides much needed consumer education for mobile payments. Though little
about Apple Pay is actually new, she says,
Apples approach gives mobile payments
a much needed Apple bump.
Similarly, Holden dubs Apple the
mass markets great educator having
created the consumer smartphone, app,
and tablet markets. Apples entrance
into the NFC space will create a positive halo effect on the wider industry,
in just the same way it did with apps,
Holden says.
Short-term, Shen says Apple Pays
impact will depend on how quickly retailers migrate to EMV. MasterCard and
Visa have mandated a transition to EMV
credit cards by October 2015 for merchants in the U.S., meaning many will
need to upgrade systems. Currently, all
major phone makers are implementing
NFC within their product lines somewhere, but the user installed base is still
low because the technology is relatively
new, Shen says.
Reinelt says NFC terminal availability will grow due to EMV terminal
migration and the looming October
2015 deadline. Those EMV terminals automatically come with NFC
technology, which merchants merely
have to code and turn on, she says.
Retailers that have migrated POS terminals to EMV already will support
contactless, NFC approaches by default, she adds.
The Future
Where making remote mobile payments are concerned, Holden believes
were almost there. The sheer scale
of usage tells us that consumer awareness is high and acceptance is growing
rapidly. The key for retailers is recognizing how consumer behavior is
evolving and respond to it, he says. For
example, consumers today browse instore but complete purchases at home
on a tablet. Retailers are responding by
offering price-match guarantees and
equipping in-house staff with tablets
that act as a mobile POS to browse with
customers and let them skip checkout
lines. Holden says awareness and acceptance of contactless payments is far
lower. Here, consumer and retailer education is critical, which is why Apple
involvement is so critical.
In the next two years, Reinelt believes
well see notable consumer and merchant adoption of NFC. By that time,
merchants will have fully upgraded to
EMV/NFC terminals, and iPhone users
will be ready to upgrade to the iPhone
6 rather inexpensively. Further, because
most Android phones already have
NFC, a provider will eventually capture
the Android mobile payments market,
she says.
29
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Dialing Into UCaaS

THE ADVANTAGES & EFFICIENCIES THAT CLOUD-BASED COMMUNICATIONS CAN PROVIDE
AS KEN LANDOLINE, Current Analysis

principal analyst, points out, theres a
mantra among solution providers today
UCaaS (unified communications as a
service) providers includedthat goes
mobile first. Meaning the folks developing solutions must keep in mind mobile
executives, mobile sales representatives,
and other mobile workers, as more people
are working from their mobile devices.
Factor in the fact that more employees
are also working remotely and it makes
sense enterprises are increasingly eying
UCaaS, which Landoline says makes it
much easier to increase points of service
and reach employees, among other things,
rather than having to make adjustments
to a monolithic PBX. Although companies have yet to adopt full-fledged UCaaS
solutions in large numbers, expectations
are more will implement various UCaaS
elements in coming years.
This article explores the benefits that
UCaaS offers over traditional UC implementations, why organizations might
consider altering their current communications solutions for UCaaS, and more.
Communication Breakdown
Years ago, while sizing up the UC markets reach, Landoline set about creating
a fundamental definition for UC. For a
solution to qualify as UC at the desktop,
he determined three basic criteria were
required, including a telephone dial tone
to make/receive voice calls, employee presence to know who was on the system at
any given time, and the ability to message
people. Since then, Landoline says, UC has
expanded to include such notable elements
as video, page sharing, collaboration, and
other components.
Historically, high acquisition, management, and maintenance costs relegated
on-premises UC solutions to large enterprises primarily, says Tim Banting, Current
Analysis principal analyst. Delivered
as a service, however, UC becomes accessible to more types and sizes of businesses. Essentially, UCaaS takes traditional
UC infrastructure (PBX [private branch

exchange], for example) off premises,
providing the same service via a hosted
provider. Rather than pay for line rentals
and PBX hardware, says Phillip Pexton,
Canalys analyst, pricing is usually based
on a monthly, per-user basis model that
may frequently change depending on the
number of users and the UC elements used.
Typically, UCaaS provides a full communications service with little need for specific
hardware or software purchases, Banting
says, meaning significantly lower initial deployment, ongoing maintenance, and upgrade costs. Irwin Lazar, Nemertes Research
vice president and service director, says
while some solutions might include voice,
desktop video, IM, Web conferencing, and
contact center features, others might provide everything but voice.
To date, UCaaS adoption remains
somewhat tepid. Pexton says a recent
Canalys survey of channel partners revealed 96% believed hosted collaboration
offerings would comprise less than 20% of
31
Traditional UC solutions can be complex to deploy and

manage, often stretching IT departments beyond their
capabilities.
their revenue in 2015. He says one barrier

is companies attitudes toward moving
mission critical voice communications
off-premises. Many early adopters initially
started with some UC elements in the
cloud (Web collaboration and email, for
example), before adopting a fully hosted
solution, he says. Similarly, Lazar says
while Nemertes benchmark research
shows strong uptake in UCaaS solutions,
companies are largely deploying point
solutions, such as cloud-based voice, Web
conferencing, mail/IM, etc., vs. buying a
single offering.
PHILLIP PEXTON
Analyst : Canalys
By going to UCaaS, [companies] can save in initial capital cost and obtain a broader set of integrated features
with less in-house integration efforts. UCaaS services
typically offer faster upgrades to deliver new features.
IRWIN LAZAR
Vice President & Service Director : Nemertes Research
The Advantages
Security concerns, reliability, and adhering to compliance/regulations requirements are among the deterrents companies
have experienced when adopting cloudbased communications services companies
have experienced. Conversely, flexibility,
complexity, and integration are key areas
where UCaaS can improve upon traditional UC. Traditional UC solutions can
be complex to deploy and manage, often
stretching IT departments beyond their
capabilities, says Pexton. UCaaS enables
IT to eliminate complexity by letting UC
specialists manage the solution. UCaaS
also enables flexibility in terms of easily
adding and removing users and its paywhat-you-use pricing model.
Lazar says the biggest advantage of
UCaaS is the native integration the solutions offer. For example, a company with
separate platforms for email, IM, voice,
video, Web conferencing, and contact
center can find that UCaaS offers a far
more integrated and easier-to-use user interface, he says. UCaaS offerings may
also offer presence and click-to-call federation with other companies or public services, such as Skype.
Elsewhere, the enhanced visibility
into spending and the ability to reduce
OPEX and limit CAPEX that UCaaS
provides can translate into financial efficiencies. Another advantage relates to
expanding points of service. Rolling out
a solution to three additional branch offices, for example, would basically only require an Internet connection and browser,
Landoline says. Further, customization
32
possibilities in the cloud make it simple for

internal or external developers to implement changes, while uniformity and consistency advantages in terms of upgrades
are also noteworthy, he says.
Another big advantage that people
dont talk about yet but I see coming is
that . . . putting things in the cloud is a
tremendous form of business continuity,
Landoline says. Whereas an organization
with an on-premises UC system could lose
communication abilities in the event of
a natural disaster, for example, working
in the cloud would enable the business to
keep running, he says.
Overall, overhauling an existing communications solution to adopt UCaaS typically makes sense when a company is at
an inflection point in which it requires
upgrades to existing UC platforms, Lazar
says. By going to UCaaS, [companies]
can save in initial capital cost and obtain
a broader set of integrated features with
less in-house integration efforts, he says.
UCaaS services typically offer faster upgrades to deliver new features.
Future Adoption
Similarly, Landoline says a small percentage of companies are in a greenfield
environment that gives them a pure
choice to either implement UC on-premises or put it in the cloud. Instead, the marketplace is primarily a replacement market,
he says, meaning a company is facing
decisions concerning whether to replace
the PBX or a previous on-site solution.

Therefore, Landoline says, theres a big
legacy piece of hardware and software to
deal with. A CFO in an organization with
a relatively newer communications system
might say, We need to depreciate that
over the next 10 or 12 years. We cant just
yank it out, Landoline explains.
Due to such scenarios, Landoline says,
he foresees a hybrid era occurring over
the next five to 10 years where organizations with existing on-premises solutions
start adding cloud-based applications to
bolster those solutions but not scrap them
entirely due to the investment they made.
He says vendors would be wise to build
for a hybrid world. For example, if youre
running a contact center, and a company
wants to put in a workforce management
solution, Landoline explains, allow it to
do that in the cloud and work on-premises and link them together in a hybrid
type of environment. Landoline says he
believes thousands of applications could
be placed in the cloud and added to onpremises UC solutions.
Currently, the collaboration and communications market is fragmented into numerous premises-based and cloud-based
offerings, he says, thus theres likely to be
a compromise in features and functionality in choosing a solution thats either all
cloud-based or all premises-based. Many
vendors currently support hybrid models
where customers can integrate both deployment choices.
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CyberTrend
Is The Essential
Monthly Guide To
Business Technology
For Executives &
Company Owners
Greenovations
ENERGY-CONSCIOUS TECH
The technologies
that make our
lives easier also
produce some
unwanted side
effects on the
environment.
Fortunately, many
researchers,
manufacturers,
and businesses
are working to
create solutions
that will keep us
productive while
reducing energy
demands to lessen our impact on
the environment.
Here, we examine some of the
newest green
initiatives.
Solar Impulse 2 is a single-seat, solar-powered aircraft. Its wings, longer than those of a 747, hold nearly 17,000
solar cells. The website www.solarimpulse.com is tracking the aircraft on its journey around the world.
Solar Impulse 2 Takes Off On Journey To Become First

Solar-Powered Aircraft To Circumnavigate The World
A pair of Swiss pilots and adventurers who also happen to be ardent advocates
of sustainable energy are currently attempting to circumnavigate the globe in an
aircraft powered only by the sun. Bertrand Piccard and Andr Borschberg are taking
turns at the helm of the Solar Impulse 2, piloting the single-seat aircraft through
individual legs of its global flight. The flight attempt is the culmination of 12 years
of planning by Piccard and Borschberg, who are the respective chairman and CEO
of the organization behind Solar Impulse. Backed by a team of some 90 people,
including engineers, physicists, scientists, and grounds crew, the two team leaders
are attempting to circle the globe to demonstrate how far sustainable technology has
come and to push the boundaries of solar-powered flight. Solar Impulse 2 started the
first leg of its 12-part flight on March 9, flying from Abu Dhabi to Muscat, Oman.
You can learn more about the technology and team behind Solar Impulse 2 and
follow along on its epic journey at www.solarimpulse.com.
Phone Battery Running Low? South Korean Researchers Show

How One Day You May Recharge Batteries Just By Walking Around
Researchers at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea recently demonstrated
a cloth that can generate electrical energy as you walk. The cloth uses layers of material called triboelectric nanogenerators, or TNGs, that throw off electrons when they
rub together. These electron streams then can be captured and converted to electrical
energy that can be used to power personal electronics devices. According to research
results that the scientists published in the Nano journal of the American Chemical
Society, the team led by Professor Sang-Woo Kim successfully demonstrated how
energy from the TNG cloth could power LED lights and even operate a keyless entry
for a vehicle. Eventually, you might power small devices from TNG-infused clothing.
34
Taipei Will Be Pilot City

For Gogoro Smartscooter
Gogoro is a startup company that has
created the Smartscooter, a high-performance smart electric scooter with a twist:
the batteries it runs on are not designed to
be charged by the owner. Instead, Gogoro
intends for owners of its scooters to go to
special vending kiosks called GoStations
and swap the batteries for new ones when
they need more juice. The batteries, made
by Panasonic, are uniquely designed to be
swapped out in seconds. Gogoro says its
scooters have a range of 100 km or more
depending on usage. They also have digital
dashboards you can customize with software.
The scooters have dozens of sensors and will
notify users about mechanical problems and
when they need to swap batteries. There's
even an app that will tell you if someone
has been messing around with your scooter
when you're not there. The company is planning a test rollout this summer in Taipei,
where scooters are very popular. If all goes
well, look for a global rollout later.
Gogoro says its Smartscooters has top speeds of 95 kph

(kilometers per hour) and can accelerate from 0 to 50
kph in 4.2 seconds.
Goodyear Says In The Future,

Tires Could Help Power Your Car
Goodyear unveiled conceptual plans at
the 2015 Geneva International Auto Show
for a tire that converts heat to power. Tires
generate heat because of road friction;
Goodyear's design would have tires convert that heat to energy that could be used
to charge onboard batteries. The company also says the tires could harvest solar
energy. No word yet from Goodyear on
when (or if) the tires might arrive.
Toyota's new i-Road vehicles are especially designed for city transportation. The three-wheeled i-Roads are
electric, so they emit no carbon dioxide, and they relieve congestion on streets and in parking structures.
Toyota's Latest All-Electric Vehicle Is A Tiny Three-Wheeler Called

i-Road That Parks In Tight Spaces & Corners Like A Motorcycle
Global automotive giant Toyota has developed a tiny, three-wheeled vehicle for city
driving that runs on lithium-ion batteries. The i-Road looks a little bit like a golf cart
that was compacted on the sides; there's only enough passenger room inside for the
driver. The two front wheels are synchronized independently to the car's steering, so as
the car goes around a turn, the body can lean into the curve much like a motorcycle.
Unlike on a motorcycle, however, the vehicle is responsible for maintaining balance
as you drive. Toyota compares the feeling of driving the i-Road to skiing, saying the
more you drive, the better it gets. The car only measures a little more than 92 inches
long and 34 inches wide; Toyota says it only takes up about one-half to one-fourth as
much parking space as other cars. The battery range is about 50 km. Pricing has not
yet been released, although the car is currently being tested in urban settings in several
locations around the world, including Grenoble France and Toyota City, Japan.
California Commission Proposes New Regulations That Would

Reduce Energy Consumption In Computing Systems & Displays
The California Energy Commission recently drafted a proposal to put in place
new energy efficiency standards for personal computers, servers, workstations, notebooks, and computer displays. The commission estimates the new regulations will
increase the cost of a personal computer by $2 but will save the consumer buying the
computer about $69 in energy costs over five years. The mandates would increase
monitor costs about $5 and save consumers about $26 in energy bills over six years.
The new standards would apply to notebooks and desktop systems, as well as digital
signage systems. According to the commission, notebooks already comply with most
of the new proposal, however, the cost of a notebook would still increase about $1
with the regulations. Consumers would get about $2 back in terms of reduced energy
bills over the course of four years. If approved, the regulations would take effect for
some product categories at the start of 2016 and roll out to others beginning in 2017.
Overall, the commission estimates the regulations would reduce the state's energy
usage by more than 2,700 gigawatt hours annually, saving Californians about $430
million per year.
35
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More Providers, More Space

WHY USING MULTIPLE DATA CENTER COLOCATION VENDORS CAN MAKE SENSE
THERES A HEALTHY NUMBER of colo-
The Trend
cation data centers throughout hundreds

of U.S. cities, and companies are taking
advantage these days. Colocation enables
organizations to lease data center space
in which to place their infrastructure. The
colocation vendor provides the mechanical
and electrical infrastructure up to the rack,
while the organization retains responsibility
for the compute, storage, networking, and
security aspects of its equipment.
Overall, organizations gain the flexibility of quickly acquiring data center
space without the financial burden of provisioning and operating on-premises infrastructures. Commonly, colocation vendors
also offer remote hands services, expertise
in certain industries, direct connections
to multiple carriers and cloud service providers, and possibly managed and hosted
services. While organizations have traditionally partnered with one colocation provider at a time, companies are increasingly
using multiple vendors. The following explores the philosophy in doing so.
Frost & Sullivan estimates overall U.S.

colocation service revenue will grow at
around 12% per year through 2017, with
the greatest growth coming from service providers, says Lynda Stadtmueller,
Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan cloud computing services vice president. These providers, which include cloud and managed
service providers, want to control their infrastructures but also need access to the
multiple network service providers that
colocation interconnection services offer.
Furthermore, they dont want to take on
the labor- and time-intensive effort of
building data centers, Stadtmueller says.
Among this group, the use of multiple
colo providers is likely growing as they
expand their geographical presence to be
closer to their customers, she says.
Kelly Morgan, research director with 451
Research, says using multiple providers is
common. Drivers include network congestion, cloud usage, disaster recovery requirements, and enterprises expanding into new
geographic locations in which they want/

need to store data. Conversely, because the
colocation industry is consolidating, she
says, more providers can now offer facilities
with the same look and feel in numerous
locations and, in some cases, under one
master contract and with a single monitoring system. Long-term, 451 Research
expects more enterprises will use one large
vendor as the efficiency gains of having one
contract, monitoring system, and point of
contact outweigh potential cost-savings of
using multiple vendors, Morgan says.
John Dinsdale, Synergy Research
Group vice president and chief analyst,
says he feels the desire or need to use multiple colocation providers will likely increase substantially among enterprises that
require data centers in multiple metros,
regions, or countries. Clive Longbottom,
Quocirca founder, meanwhile, also believes usage is on the rise, though he
guesses from a miniscule base and for
companies with the highest levels of need
for systems availability.
37
Why It Make Sense

Often, companies use multiple colocation providers because individual local providers are less expensive than using a larger
provider that operates multiple locations.
In some instances, a colocation provider
may simply not have a data center in every
location that an organization needs one.
Even if the provider does, it may not have
enough space/power or the right connectivity/cloud providers the company seeks,
Morgan explains.
More than anything else, Dinsdale says,
location and required footprint are driving
usage of multiple providers. Based on their
own geographic distribution of offices and
business locations, enterprises have some
reasonably specific requirements for where
their data centers must be located, so theyll
seek out colocation providers that have data
center presence in the right regions and metropolitan areas, he says.
An enterprise, for example, may need
data center space in multiple locations to reduce network latency/costs when providing
data and applications to satellite offices. It
may be more secure and/or less expensive to
house equipment in facilities where the enterprise can connect directly with cloud and
SaaS [software as a service] vendors or with
multiple network providers, Morgan says.
Additionally, many countries require that
data be stored within their nation's borders,
boosting the need for local data center space.
Businesses also use multiple colocation
services to get closer to their customers or
suppliers when latency-sensitive traffic is
involved, because hosting content in multiple colocation facilities near customers
minimizes latency and improves application
performance, Stadtmueller says. Currently,
many colocation providers have limited locations, she says. The largest providers are
clustered in major population centers, while
smaller providers are located in Tier 2 metro
areas. So, a company that does business in
multiple areas may have to use multiple colo
providers, she says.
Using multiple colocation sources does
introduce benefits tied to dual sourcing, particularly in terms of security and disaster
recovery. Stadtmueller says in the largest
metro areas, colocation providers often build
multiple data centers, which gives customers
38
It may be more secure and/or less expensive to house

equipment in facilities where the enterprise can connect directly with cloud and SaaS [software as a service]
vendors or with multiple network providers."
KELLY MORGAN
Research Director : 451 Research
the diversity they desire in terms of having

two data centers in the same general area
as well as locations far enough apart that
theyre on different power grids to minimize
disruption from power outages.
Longbottom adds that using two geographically disparate data centers enables
organizations to employ application and data
mirroring so that the failure of one facility
will lead to an elegant failover to the second
one. What's more, if one provider should go
out of business, the organization can failover
to another facility, he says.
Ultimately, Stadtmueller says, using multiple colocation providers is really about location and interconnectivity (network and
cloud connectivity) benefits. As long as each
colocation provider offers the redundancy,
security, and connectivity to cloud providers
the company seeks, it doesnt much matter
whether you choose to work with one or
multiple providers, she says. The customer
provides all its own equipment, so there are
no real infrastructure efficiencies to using a
single or multiple providers; its all square
footage and power.
Possible Drawbacks
Juggling multiple operators, however,
can also bring on added costs, complexity,
and hassle. The No. 1 drawback, according
to Morgan, is having to deal with multiple
contracts and points of contact, something
particularly challenging when rolling out
equipment or making changes that affect
numerous facilities. Different facilities may
also have different procedures and designs
that complicate matters for companies IT
personnel and compliance auditors.
Monitoring is another potential concern.
Some colocation providers with multiple facilities tie them together via one monitoring
system, enabling customers to view whats
happening in each facility from a single
portal. This makes tracking equipment,
performance, and spending much easier,

Morgan says.
From an IT configuration standpoint,
Stadtmueller says, a colocation facility essentially acts as an extension of the organizations own data center (although with better
network and cloud connectivity choices), so
theres not much difference between using
space in facilities belonging to one or multiple
vendorsassuming each facility meets the
companys redundancy, physical security, and
connectivity requirements.
For those using multiple providers,
Morgan advises tracking differences among
providers and ensuring all key enterprise
staff are aware of the differences. Examples
include knowing requirements/procedures
for entering facilities, policies around equipment deliveries/storage, where racks/cages
are located and how to access them, points of
contact, policies and charges concerning providers remote hands policies, network connectivity provided and how its charged, how
much power is available to equipment and
how the organization will know its nearing
its maximum, and how providers will notify
the organization about incidents or outages.
Organizations should also ensure each facility offers security, service, and redundancy
levels needed for their workloads. Facilities
belonging to a single provider can be built
to different standardssomething providers
readily disclosethereby ensuring youre
paying for what you need, Stadtmueller says.
Longbottom says decisions concerning multiple providers will involve how much money
the organization is willing to invest and how
much risk its willing to carry. Running a
high-availability dual-colocation environment, he says, can include additional costs
for managing data syncs, reporting, failover,
testing, updates, etc. For some companies
and specific workloads, a warm rather than
hot approach could be more cost-effective,
Longbottom says.
Identify System Issues

Quickly With Service Center
PC-DOCTORS SERVICE CENTER KIT STREAMLINES PC, MAC & ANDROID DEVICE REPAIR
TROUBLESHOOTING system hardware issues

can be tricky. Memory failures, for example,
can trigger intermittent crashes and application errors that seem like software glitches.
PC-Doctors Service Center Kit is a complete
diagnostic tool kit that includes the software
and hardware technicians need to diagnose
complex system issues. Service Center provides comprehensive diagnostics for PCs,
Macs, and Android devices, offering four
diagnostic platforms on a single USB key,
says Bob Zaretsky, PC-Doctors director of
business development. Lets delve deeper into
how the Service Center Kit works.
Diagnostics For Multiple

Environments
PC-Doctors Service Center Premier Kit includes everything in the standard kit, as well as PCI and miniPCI POST cards
with a display (so technicians can test systems that wont boot) and a power supply tester.
There are many Windows-based diagnostic tools available to repair professionals,

but sometimes the OS simply wont start. For
this reason Service Center includes a USB
flash drive with bootable diagnostic capabilities. Offline bootable diagnostics allow
testing of unbootable systems or systems
without hard drives, says Zaretsky. The USB
drive also works in multiple platforms, including Windows, DOS, Mac, and Android,
allowing diagnostic sessions to be performed
on almost all computing hardwareeven if
the OS wont boot.
Power Tools For The Technician

In addition to the Service Center software,
PC-Doctor includes the tools technicians,
repair centers, and electronic recyclers need
to accurately troubleshoot problems. The
standard Service Center Kit includes parallel,
serial, USB, audio, and Ethernet loopback
adapters. The loopbacks, optional power
supply tester, and PCI/MiniPCI POST cards
help diagnose those more difficult problems
quickly, says Zaretsky. PC-Doctor also provides a diagnostic DVD and test media.
Reporting For Better Insight

With Service Center, it takes seconds to
create professional reports detailing testing
performed and actions taken, as well as pertinent system information. Reports can include system and test information, drive wipe
details, and a comparison between any two
snapshots detailing system changes made,
says Zaretsky. This information makes it easy
for an organization to document the history
of a machine. Reports can also be customized
to include company details and a logo.
Get Better Results Now

System downtime often means wasted
hours. Contact PC-Doctor to find out more
about how the Service Center toolkit can help
your business save money and function at
peak efficiency.
ABOVE & BEYOND TESTING

Service Center offers several capabilities
to streamline common business processes. For instance, the latest release
features a Drive Erase tool providing
multiple drive wipe options that adhere
to Department of Defense standards.
Printable reports show the selected
drive wipe options and the actions
taken to guarantee customer data has
been safely and securely deleted, says
Zaretsky. Service Center also helps analyze problems reported by the system.
For example, post-crash Windows dump
files are available to find the root cause
of corrupt device drivers. Theres also
an easily accessible My Links section
where technicians can save common
BIOS codes, documentation, and more.
PC-Doctor, Inc. | 866.289.7237 | www.PCDServiceCenter.com
39
Going Virtual? Dont Get Burned

DISCOVER THE BENEFITS OF HOSTED VDI & LEARN WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A PROVIDER
KEY POINTS
VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) makes it easier to deploy
and manage OS and application
instances for users without needing
high-performance PCs.
In-house VDI deployments can
be quite complex and costly, which
is why hosted alternatives are
growing in popularity.
Desktop-as-a-service solutions
enable virtual desktops without
having to build out or manage the
internal infrastructure.
Make sure your hosted VDI
solution offers mobile support and
strong management capabilities,
and that the vendor offers virtual
desktops and not server OSes.
FOR DECADES, IT teams have had to deploy
What Is VDI & How Does It Work?
personal computers to every individual employee in the organization, install updates on

a person-to-person basis, and troubleshoot
issues on location. But with the introduction
and growth of virtual desktops, IT teams can
now update and maintain operating system
and application instances from a centralized
location. Perhaps the best part of this development is that while companies are saving
time and money with virtual desktops, end
users still get the same desktop experience
they are familar with.
However, not all companies have jumped
on board with VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure) due to high up-front costs and
the skills necessary for a proper internal
implementation. Fortunately, there are now
hosted alternatives available that help companies take advantage of virtual desktop
technologies without all of the headaches.
If youre curious about virtual desktops or
have wanted to deploy them for a long time
and havent been able to, then hosted VDI
might be the answer.
VDI, at its very core, is the technological

foundation needed for IT to deploy virtual
desktops to employees on a wide variety of
devices. The virtual desktops themselves are
actually full instances of operating systems
that look and perform just like an installed
OS would on a traditional PC. In a typical
setup, the VDI platform itself and the virtual
desktops are all hosted on infrastructure in
the data center and then the desktops are
essentially streamed to end user devices,
which can be traditional PCs and laptops or
even tablets and smartphones.
The VDI software provides an interface
for the administrator to quickly deploy, destroy, and manage large numbers of these
virtualized desktops in a very quick, efficient way, says Mark Lockwood, research
director at Gartner. The VDI software is
responsible for remoting or sending the
screen of the virtual desktop to whatever
device the end user is connecting with,
and taking the mouse and keyboard input
from the end user and transmitting it to
41
the virtual desktop. The protocols that VDI

vendors use to manage this remoting are extremely fast and ever-improving, in order to
provide the best user experience possible.
Main Benefits Of Traditional VDI

Perhaps the most common benefit youll
hear when researching VDI technology is
how it can save you money, which is true
to a certain extent. While there are some
significant up front costs involved with a
VDI implementation, you will save money
on desktop deployments because you will
no longer need high-performance PCs to
run unique OS instances and applications.
Instead, you can use less expensive commodity hardware to provide the same user
experience, or even allow a BYOD (bring
your own device) policy and stream virtual
desktops to user-owned devices.
Another major benefit of VDI revolves
around overcoming long distances and
giving employees secure, always-on access to
virtual desktops. In terms of distance, VDI
makes it easier to deliver the full desktop
experience to mobile employees or people
working in remote offices. You can upgrade,
update, and maintain OS and application
instances onsite rather than travel to remote
offices or maintain a constant onsite IT presence for troubleshooting and support.
For security, VDI opens up many new
possibilities even for companies in the most
highly regulated industries. For example,
Lockwood says, health care organizations can
use VDI to provide anytime access to a specific clients information and make sure that
data is not at risk. The doctor doesnt have
to carry a laptop or worry about charging
his laptop or finding a Wi-Fi signal, says
Lockwood. The patients data is not on a
laptop that could be stolen or misplaced and
the doctor can have charts, images, and other
data always readily available.
In-House Challenges
& The Growth Of Hosted VDI
Lockwood stresses that delivering a
quality VDI experience to end users is extremely complex, which is why in-house
deployments require quite a bit of initial
spending and investment in VDI expert
talent. And while there are ways for companies to deploy VDI successfully through
42
Does the enterprise want its company secrets living

on laptops that are being carried around the country by
the sales force? Does the enterprise want its data to be
constantly pulled across unsecure networks so that a user
can manipulate it? In many cases, the answer is no, and
so organizations turn to VDI, because the only thing that
transmits across the wire with VDI is video, keyboard, and
mouse. The data stays put inside the data center where it
is more secure.
MARK LOCKWOOD
Research Director : Gartner
proper planning, prioritizing what desktops

they virtualize, and other crucial steps, the
best option for some organizations is to
go with a managed service provider and a
hosted VDI alternative.
In fact, many vendors now offer hosted
VDI in the form of DaaS (desktop as a service), which takes much of the responsibility
of deploying and managing VDI away from
the enterprise and places it on the shoulders
of experienced third parties. VDI is different
than server virtualization in many ways, says
Robert Young, research manager at IDC.
The desktop workload directly impacts
the end user. Once that desktop goes down,
theyre finished. With server virtualization,
if there is a performance glitch maybe a file
will open up a bit slower, but when a desktop
workload goes down, it immediately and
directly impacts the end user.
For many organizations, the time and
money required to set up a VDI platform
and ensure the best possible user experience
is simply not realistic, which is why DaaS
usage is on the rise. In fact, in 2013, Young
says that the client virtualization market
was at about $2.8 billion with hosted DaaS
and WaaS (workspace as a service) software
making up about 10% of that total. By 2018,
IDC expects hosted solutions will make up
about 42.5% of the market.
One of the major contributors to this
growth, according to Young, is the influx
of more and more converged infrastructure
solutions that come as a turnkey solution
with storage, network, and compute all in
one box from one provider. These solutions make it much easier and less expensive
up front to implement VDI. Procuring that

infrastructure hardware, and the storage
in particular, is really expensive, and that
has always been one of the roadblocks,
says Young. A lot of standard IT shops are
not up on how to implement, manage, and
design a client virtualization environment,
so thats why I look at converged infrastructure solutions from that angle, and also the
hosted DaaS environment.
Benefits Of DaaS
Compared To In-House VDI
Because DaaS is a hosted service offered
by third-party providers, it has some unique
benefits that companies wont get from an
in-house deployment. With DaaS, you dont
have to manage PC fleets and data and
you dont have to deal with mobile management related to offering virtual desktops on
mobile devices, Young says. You can also
offer users internal company data to work
on projects at home without that data actually being stored on the device. In essence,
you can jump into a growing marketplace
with significantly less risk than if you deployed everything in-house.
It goes back to the cost to procure that
on-premises infrastructure, says Young.
A lot of companies cant take on that
much of a CAPEX cost up front. They may
also not have the skillset to deploy it and/
or manage it and scale it. Many times, he
says, the benefit of client virtualization is
appreciated by remote employees. Mobile
is a huge growth segment in this market,
adds Young. Lets say you set it up yourself. Youre an internal IT organization
based in Boston. You set up the client virtualization, and your employees that work
in the greater Boston area probably arent
going to have any issue reaching back to
the data center, but when you start having
globalization and mobile employees traveling across the globe, how do you scale
that? DaaS lends itself to that.
As far as who will benefit most from
a DaaS-based VDI deployment, Young
says that its penetrating the midmarket more than it is the enterprise,
because those companies dont necessarily have a mature IT organization with
data centers in multiple regions. Its
also popular with companies that arent
as concerned about storing data in the
cloud. Young says that some vendors are
working to offer solution specifically for
highly regulated industries, but thats
a much smaller portion of the industry
right now.
Enterprises typically have a lot of
stringent compliance policies that they
need to run, so they want a lot of management around their client virtualization solutions that theyre delivering out
to their end users, says Young. Having
that level of management in a DaaS environment is still something thats being
built upon. VMware and Microsoft provide some management tools in their
DaaS offerings, but its still evolving. Its
not to where it would be if you were to
buy their solutions and implement them
on-premises.
What To Look For In A

DaaS Solution & Provider
If you decide hosted VDI is appropriate for your organization, then youll
want to make sure to select a solution
with the right capabilities as well as find
a vendor that offers the support you
need. For the VDI solution itself, Young
says the most important feature to watch
for is mobile support. Whether you have
a BYOD policy or deploy devices to employees, youll want to make sure the
VDI vendor has a way to push virtual
desktops out to mobile devices, regardless of the OS it runs or whether its a
tablet or smartphone. Your organization
has to be able to deliver the same user
VDI means less upfront cost. . . . As far as ROI on a

straight dollar-for-dollar, cost-per-desktop basis, you
may or may not end up better off on that side. You may
end up spending more in the long run, but you can enable your business faster and more efficiently because
you can scale.
ROBERT YOUNG
Research Manager : IDC
experience across any device in order for

the deployment to be truly successful.
To help companies boost their mobile
VDI performance, many service providers offer application virtualization
instead of the full virtual desktop experience. When youre on a smartphone
or tablet, do you necessarily want a full
Windows desktop? Young asks. Do
you want to go to the Start menu to find
a program or do you want to just be able
to access that application?
Application virtualization also makes
it easier for IT teams to track data and
manage the applications themselves,
rather than have to focus on the entire device. Its about being able to
focus down on whats important, says
Young. IT has a lot to manage right
now, so doing device management is
like chasing the rabbit down the hole
at this point. Theyre really looking at
whats important to them. Its getting
those applications to their employees
and protecting the data theyre accessing, and application virtualization
lends itself very well to that.
When comparing hosted VDI vendors, Young offers a warning if you plan
to just go with the least expensive solution: You need to make sure that a
vendor offers a solution with in-depth
management capabilities so IT can set
policies and procedures, and one with
tools that let you decide who has access
to certain applications, he says.
You also need to make sure that the
solution a vendor offers is truly a virtualized desktop and not a virtualized
server. Ive also seen a trend toward
desktops that are very low-end and are
actually server instances, says Young.

Theyre not Windows desktop operating
systems. The reason why theyre less expensive is because Microsoft licensing
lends itself to being less expensive to run
server OSes on less hardware. When you
use full virtualized desktop, you need
dedicated hardware for each of those
instances, per Microsoft licensing. When
you do a server OS, you can have multiple instances of that OS running on the
same hardware.
If youre wondering why thats important to note, it all has to do with support.
For example, if youre running an application and an issue comes up, youll
want to be able to contact customer support to troubleshoot the problem. When
you call, Young says, the first thing the
support agent will do is have you tell
them what version of Windows youre
running. If you tell them youre running
the server OS, they very well might not
support that application to run on the
server OS, which means youll be on
your own, he says.
In addition to being aware of these
concepts, youll also want to make sure
you have a clear indication of where
your data is being stored, what regions
the data centers are located in, and who
has access to your information. You
also need to look at what SLAs (servicelevel agreements) the vendor offers in
terms of performance guarantees, and
find out what types of security features
the vendor offers. If youre able to place
a check mark in most of these boxes,
then chances are you have a provider
you can trust and a solid VDI platform
to build on.
43
Optimize Your Network

UTILIZE USER FEEDBACK & MONITORING TOOLS TO IMPROVE NETWORK PERFORMANCE
BUSINESS USERS demand more from
KEY POINTS
With so many new types of devices connecting to networks, there
are multiple challenges IT teams
have to contend with when managing networks.
Monitoring tools are crucial for
pinpointing network issues, as
are any complaints you receive
from your workforce regarding the
network.
WAN (wide area network) optimization is a key solution for optimizing
a network, and you can outsource it
to a third party, if necessary.
Put more management solutions
in place and hold your IT team accountable with internal SLAs (service
level agreements).
44
internal corporate networks than ever

before. Gone are the days the IT teams
most frequent worry was about whether
an Ethernet cable was securely plugged
into an employees desktop computer.
Now, in addition to network administrators having to think more about
complex server infrastructure, they
must also consider mobile devices and
cloud-based workloads. The key to
keeping up with the overall increase in
demand is to optimize your network to
the best of your ability and always keep
the needs of users in mind.
Common Network Issues

& Challenges
Among the first things you should
consider when deciding whether your
network could benefit from an optimization solution is how the network was
initially built and for what purpose. Dan
Conde, an analyst at ESG, says some
network administrators inherit their
networks, so they dont know the specifics as to how it was designed. For example, he says older wireless networks
may have only been designed to handle
laptop traffic and nothing else, but current networks have to be able to support
laptops plus smartphones, tablets, and
other devices, including wearables.
Conde adds that you have to
think about applications, as well.
Applications and other workloads typically ran onsite, whether they were
based in the central data center or in
a remote site, but now companies are
frequently turning to cloud-based solutions and SaaS (software as a service)
applications, which can put considerable stress on the network. There is
still a case that your equipment is
starting to fail or youre not updating
it with the right software, but a good
chance is that your applications and
platforms are changing with more
workloads or higher density of virtual
machines, Conde explains.
You need to have visibility. You need the right monitoring tools in there. First, you narrow [down the problem].
Is it consistent across all the sites or is it only at one
site? If its all the sites, then you have architectural issues. If its only at one site, maybe you dont have the
right amount of bandwidth or something else weird is
going on. It might not be an architectural issue.
ANDRE KINDNESS
Principal Analyst : Forrester Research
Moving to 802.11ac, which operates in the 5GHz band,

not only provides a tremendous speed boost, but it also
removes the potential for cross-channel inference by
providing 24 non-overlapping channels.
FRED CHAGNON
Research Director, Infrastructure : Info-Tech Research Group
In addition to inheriting an older

network, there are many other factors
that can impact your network. For example, if its a wireless network, you
may have to deal with RF (radio frequency) interference from other networks and devices. You may come to
the conclusion its your own network
thats at fault, but it could be the fact
that so many devices available today
use some form of Wi-Fi connection
to add functionality. Essentially, those
streams can cross and interfere with
one another, which can lead to spotty,
unreliable connections or a degradation
in performance.
A proper site survey will expose all
the sources of radio frequencies, which
may interfere with access points, says
Fred Chagnon, research director, infrastructure, at Info-Tech Research Group.
This can include Wi-Fi signals from
neighboring offices, or noise from other
RF-emitting devices such as Bluetooth
devices and cordless phones, he explains. The fact is these devices all share
the 2.4GHz spectrum with the already
crowded array of 802.11b, g, and n devices. Each of these devices communicates on a channel in that spectrum,
and with only three non-overlapping
channels to choose from, the area can

get very noisy.
Even security can negatively impact the performance of your network
without your realizing it, particularly
with encryption. Conde says that if you
decide you want to encrypt everything,
then you need to understand that there
may be overhead to encryption if youre
doing it on the wire, which means encrypting information while it travels over
the network. Needless to say, there are
many challenges related to optimizing
your network, but the real key is figuring
out where these problems are coming
from and why they are having a noticeable impact on network performance.
Identify Where Network

Problems Originate
To pinpoint the origins of issues
and challenges, you need to start by listening to any network-related employee
or customer complaints. Conde stresses
the importance of paying attention to
requests that come into the help desk,
because they can often give you an indication of whats impacting your network. For example, if you hear a lot of
employees complaining about the quality
of VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol)
calls, you can look at that specific

workload and determine whether its a
software, hardware, or network problem
causing the issue.
Andre Kindness, principal analyst
at Forrester Research, echoes this idea
and says that some companies are actually taking strides to make it easier
for users to report networking problems and help administrators focus on
those issues. He says that some IT support teams have developed applications
users can install and use to submit support tickets at the moment a network
problem arises. This real-time feedback
gives network administrators more information about problems and location
data they can use to find weaknesses in
the network.
Another important concept is to have
network monitoring tools in place so
you can keep an eye on the network
and locate the origin of a problem. You
need to have visibility, says Kindness.
You need the right monitoring tools
in there. First, you narrow [down the
problem]. Is it consistent across all the
sites or is it only at one site? If its all the
sites, then you have architectural issues.
If its only at one site, maybe you dont
have the right amount of bandwidth
or something else weird is going on. It
might not be an architectural issue.
In addition to monitoring your network to identify potential issues, you
can use monitoring to assist in your optimization efforts. Conde explains that
by using these tools, you can find out
how long it takes for network packets to
move from one point to another, which
will give you an idea not just about
speed, but also about latency. He also
offers up an example of how backups
could be affecting your network, as
they can account for a drop in network performance.
Lets say you do backup jobs that
run across the network, and they used
to complete in five hours, but now its
taking so long that it may not even be
ready by the time people come in to
work in the morning, says Conde. The
question is, are you backing up more? If
youre backing up the same amount but
45
its not finishing in time, then you need

to figure out if theres congestion in
the network.
Optimize Your Network

& Improve Performance
Once you discover potential issues
and know there are specific problems
impacting the performance of your
network, you can start optimizing the
network and overcome those challenges. The first and most important
solution to consider is WAN (wide area
network) optimization. These solutions let you look at the traffic moving
throughout your network and determine whether its running as efficiently
as possible. WAN optimization also
helps you prioritize workloads.
[One] thing people dont think about
is that instead of global load balancing
at the data center, if you global balance
closer to the user, youre choosing not just
the best path but [the one] closer to where
things are, says Kindness. The other
thing people dont realize is they dont
have a lot of optimization for best path.
Global load balancing, best path, WAN
optimization, and WAN orchestration are
all different services, but can all be intertwined together.
If you dont want to handle WAN
optimization in-house, you can take advantage of WAN optimization as a service or VPN (virtual private network)
as a service. What were once appliancebased solutions can now be hosted by a
cloud-provider. Instead of forcing your
networking team or other employees in
the IT team to focus on WAN optimization, distracting them from their other
tasks, you can outsource it and gather
information you can use to improve
your network.
Another idea calls for building a hybrid network or two separate network
paths that you can orchestrate and manage to improve overall performance. For
example, you can have a corporate MPLS
(Multiprotocol Label Switching)-based
network and a separate Internet-based
network that you can use at any time to
optimize performance and improve efficiency. In essence, you have two lanes
46
Be very app-driven so you can segment different types

of traffic. The network people are always going to be
surprised by different applications that are being deployed, so make sure the networking team is coordinating well with the application team so they can properly
predict the workloads.
DAN CONDE
Analyst : ESG
The biggest trend we see today is hybrid networks and

hybrid WAN. Its a combination of traditional connectivity service, like MPLS [Multiprotocol Label Switching], in
conjunction with Internet. Instead of just having MPLS
and bringing everything back to the corporate network
and then dropping it out to the Internet line of the corporate network, there are a couple of different ways to get
distributed Internet connections out to the branches.
ANDREW LERNER
Research Director : Gartner
of traffic and can control what workloads

run on which network.
Improve Management & Hold

Yourself Accountable
The technology behind hybrid networks and having two separate lanes
also lends itself to the idea of prioritizing applications, which can be done
using WAN orchestration tools and
other solutions. Andrew Lerner, research director at Gartner, says that
with traditional networking, it was difficult to manage traffic on the network
and actually determine which applications went where. It was hard to
say, I want YouTube to go out to the
Internet, but if it fails, I want it to go
to MPLS, he says. And I want my
CRM to go to MPLS, but if it fails, I
want it to go out to the Internet. But
I then want CRM to be preferred over
YouTube. When you start to get into
granular policies, its very difficult to
do with traditional networking technologies. But with hybrid networking,
WAN orchestration tools, and other
management solutions, its much easier

to manage those workloads and essentially optimize the paths they take.
Another way to optimize your network and make sure you always keep up
with the needs of the business is to have
your IT team hold itself accountable
with internal SLAs (service level agreements). Conde says that these informal
SLAs will show that the business has
certain expectations and requirements
and help IT always keep those ideas in
mind. It doesnt have to be formalized
and written, but its still a good idea to
have a two-way understanding of what
the baselines are, he says.
Once you develop those baselines,
you can update them on a regular basis
to make sure the network can keep up
with any new technologies that may
arise. This is especially important because there are new devices with networking capabilities being introduced
every day, and once those devices are
brought into the company, its ultimately ITs job to make sure the network can support them.
Is It Time For A Wi-Fi Upgrade?

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE LATEST 802.11AC STANDARD
WI-FI IS THE DE FACTO wireless technology

used today to deliver interconnectivity and
Internet access to our smartphones, tablets, notebooks, and PCs in our homes, at
work, or in public settings. The latest vision
of the protocol, 802.11ac, improves performance, range, and reliability, and it lays the
groundwork for even the most bandwidthintensive applications to go wireless. Tim
Zimmerman, vice president of research at
Gartner, suggests that now is the time to
consider upgrading to 802.11ac. Vendors
are proposing the technology at little or no
premium over 802.11n solutions, he says.
And clients are using 802.11ac to futureproof their wireless networks for new applications or usage scenarios. Just how
future-proof are we talking? Zimmerman
posits 802.11ac will serve as the first hop
connectivity to the wired network for the
next 7 to 10 years.
A Look Back
Between 1999s 802.11b protocol and
2009s 802.11n, Wi-Fi rose to prominence
on the back of the 2.4GHz frequency

band. The 802.11n standard takes advantage of both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz
bands to support maximum data rates
of 300Mbps, ranges up to 300 feet,
and MIMO (multiple input/multiple
output), which is a technology that employs multiple antennas to send and receive data faster and over a wider area.
It uses a packet aggregation technology,
which slashes the transmission overhead,
bringing theoretical data rates closer
to the ones youll actually experience.
Channel bonding is another trick 802.11n
uses to double bandwidth.
Often referred to as Gigabit wireless or
5G Wi-Fi, 802.11ac is the newest version
of Wi-Fi. It drops support for the 2.4GHz
band altogether and relies solely on the
5GHz band. One of the reasons for WiFis impressive staying power has been
its backward compatibility, and 802.11ac
continues the trend. The new protocol
is backward compatible with the 5GHz
band used by 802.11n and positively
ancient 802.11a equipment, as well as the

2.4GHz-based 802.11/b/g/n devices.
To achieve multi-station WLAN (wireless local-are network) throughputs of
at least 1.3Gbps and peak single link
throughputs of 450Mbps, 802.11ac builds
on the technologies that accounted for
802.11ns advancements, including wider
radio frequency bandwidth, multiple
MIMO spatial streams (802.11ac offers up
to eight or nine), and more.
Although the 5GHz band affords faster
access and less interference compared
with previous Wi-Fi iterations, its range is
much shorter. The 802.11ac standard gets
around this limitation using a technique
called beamforming, which employs directional antennas or Wi-Fi chip-based
signal amplification and phasing to concentrate wireless coverage between the
access point and the client device. The
802.11 Working Group approved the
standard in January 2014, and devices
that support the standard have been available for more than a year.
47
When determining how much bandwidth capacity to plan

for . . . We advise clients to plan for 5Mbps per person
of shared media access to accommodate the two to three
devices that many people are now carrying as well as
minimally 12 to 15 people connecting to a single access
point in a typical enterprise office environment.
TIM ZIMMERMAN
Vice President Of Research : Gartner
Caveats & Asterisks

For businesses looking to get the most
from their networks, making the leap to
802.11acs enhanced speeds and range
seems like a no-brainer. That being said,
there are a few things to keep in mind
when you start out on the upgrade path.
First, if you have any old 802.11a/b/g
equipment, it will work with an 802.11ac
access point, however, performance will
be limited to the speed of the slowest
component in the connection. When determining how much bandwidth capacity
to plan for, Zimmerman says, We advise
clients to plan for 5Mbps per person of
shared media access to accommodate the
two to three devices that many people are
now carrying as well as minimally 12 to
15 people connecting to a single access
point in a typical enterprise office environment.
Why Upgrade?
Being able to transmit data between
an access point and an adapter at several
hundreds of megabits per second sounds
ideal, but what will it actually let you
do? The 802.11ac equipment is capable
of streaming multiple HD videos simultaneously, fast syncing large data files,
rapid backups, supporting wireless display technology, simultaneous multiuser
applications, and manufacturing floor
automation. The 802.11ac access points
that feature USB 3.0 ports will enable
users to plug in external storage devices for hosting videos and media for
streaming, FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
servers, and personal cloud services.
Additionally, anything you did with
802.11 equipment is still possible with
48
802.11ac, only it will tend to be faster

and more reliable, and have the ability to
span longer distances.
When looking to upgrade their Wi-Fi
networks, Zimmerman recommends
companies take a close look at how end
users might use the network and what
they expect from the experience. While
using Wi-Fi for data is assumed in many
enterprise environments, voice adds a latency requirement, video adds a capacity
requirement, and IoT [Internet of Things]
may introduce other variables. As long
as you make sure the worst-case scenarios
are covered, the end users will stay happy
and productive.
It is important to note that 802.11ac
equipment is coming in two waves. The
first wave, which covers devices currently
on the market, is the one that shows the
biggest performance increase, supporting
channels up to 80MHz wide in the 5GHz
band. These devices can dynamically adjust up to nine 40MHz channels or up
to five non-overlapping 80MHz channels depending on the bandwidth and
application requirements. Wave 1 devices
also support a high-density modulation
technique called 256 QAM (ideally suited
to HD video streaming over short distances), enterprise-grade WPA2 (Wi-Fi
Protected Access II) security, and WMM
(Wi-Fi Multimedia) QoS (quality of service), which lets the access point prioritize
data streams based on latency and data
rate requirements.
Wave 2 802.11ac chipsets, slated
for release this year or early next year,
will support MU-MIMO (Multi-User
MIMO), which can account for a huge
leap in Wi-Fi performance for enterprises
that make the investment. However,

Zimmerman says, there will be usage scenarios that will benefit from MU-MIMO,
but any premium paid by enterprises will
be limited to specific cases. This technology has the potential to support four
times as many WLAN users as Wave 1
devices thanks to the use of up to 8x8 antenna arrays, beamforming, and support
for 160MHz channels. While there are
few enterprise usage scenarios that require
the full 1.3Gbps of 802.11ac Wave 1,
Zimmerman says, we anticipate the move
to 802.11ac Wave 2 to be very slow since
the number of applications requiring this
performance level will be smaller.
Wi-Fis Future
Zimmerman acknowledges there are
new extensions to the 802.11 protocol
under development, but they wont diminish the value up upgrading to
802.11ac equipment today. The catalyst
for change to a different standard or technology will not be performance, but other
factors such as battery life savings for mobile clients, the ability to provide better
indoor positioning information, or the
integration of a cellular/Wi-Fi module
that dramatically reduces the cost of a
joint solution.
The Wireless Gigabit Alliances efforts
are focused on 802.11ad, now simply referred to as WiGig, which will utilize the
2.4GHz, 5GHz, and unlicensed 60GHz
frequency bands to achieve 7Gbps peak
data rates. Thats about as fast as an eightantenna 802.11ac access point, but 60GHz
transmissions degrade quickly when
passing through walls and other obstructions. Wi-Fi Alliance has announced the
new technology will be used in Wireless
USB. Another protocol that Zimmerman
highlights, 802.11ah, isnt expected to be
finalized until 2016. [It] uses 900MHz
instead of 2.4GHz or 5GHz. This change
allows greater range/coverage area at a
lower data rate . . . but may be an ideal solution for sensors in vertical markets such
as smart metering.
With the mobile industry expanding at
a faster pace than ever before, we expect
to see Wi-Fi grow and evolve right alongside our wireless needs.
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Cyberthreat Report
DDOS ATTACKS ARE ON THE RISEHOW VULNERABLE IS YOUR BUSINESS?
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER high-profile

DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack makes headlines. According to a
March report from the cloud services
provider Akamai, there were 57% more
DDoS attacks in Q4 2014 than in the previous quarter, and 90% more than what
occurred in the same period in 2013. Year
over year, the firm found that DDoS attacks showed a 52% increase in average
peak bandwidth and a 28% increase in
average attack duration, and there were
a total of nine massive 100Gbps or larger
attacks for the year compared with just
three in 2013.
Weapon Of Mass Disruption

As the frequency of DDoS attacks increases, the first step in assessing your
organizations vulnerability to such attacks is to understand the nature of the
enemy and the tools of their nefarious
trade. A DDoS attack typically consists
of hundreds or thousands of computers,
often infected by malware, operating as
50
nodes in a botnet sending repeated and

simultaneous download or login requests
to a particular server of your organization, resulting in a significant slowdown
for legitimate server requests and sometimes even a server crash. Although less
prevalent, some DDoS attacks are beginning to originate from botnets comprised
of servers, which gives the cybercriminals
more processing power and bandwidth
with which to inflict damage. DDoS attacks can cost your organization a lot of
money in lost business, but the cybercriminals perpetrating these sorts of attacks often threaten to prolong the attack
unless they receive a ransom.
How worried should organizations be
about external cyberattacks? Lawrence
Orans, research vice president at Gartner,
says, Any organization could be the

target of a DDoS attack.
One of the biggest trends security researchers have noticed in recent years
is the monetization of DDoS toolkits,
which gives anyone with a grudge or
an unscrupulous desire to make money,
or just someone looking to make some
headlines of their own, the means to
launch a DDoS attack against virtually
any target. Orans says DDoS toolkits
are readily available on the Internet,
and they are being used to launch attacks against a variety of targets. He explains that, hacktivism (an attack based
on principle), is a common driver for
DDoS attacks. So if your organization
could be viewed as controversial, it could
be the target of a DDoS attack.
ONE OF THE BIGGEST ISSUES ORGANIZATIONS

FACE WHEN TRYING TO PREVENT MODERN
DDOS ATTACKS IS THAT NO TWO ATTACKS
ARE EXACTLY ALIKE.
Courting controversy, though, isnt the

only way to earn your very own DDoS
attack. Akamais report shows that some
of the most commonly targeted industries include gaming (35.33%), software
and technology (26.58%), Internet and
telecom (10.93%), media and entertainment (10.01%), financial services (6.79%),
and educational companies (5.75%).
The Rise Of Anonymizers

Another noteworthy trend in DDoS attacks is the use of anonymizers, or anonymous proxies, as a means of launching an
attack while obfuscating the origin of the
attack. Anonymizers let users hide their
origin IP and Internet activity through
the use of a proxy server, which can be an
effective way to maintain privacy, avoid
unwanted advertising and marketing
content, and protect private data from
falling into the wrong hands. However,
according to Incapsula, a cloud-based application delivery service provider, malicious persons are increasingly using these
anonymizers to launch untraceable DDoS
attacks. The attack begins as a singlesource DOS attack, such as a user who
purchases a DDoS toolkit and launches it
from a single home computer. From there
the malicious traffic is routed through a
network of proxy servers, which transforms the attack into a DDoS attack. In
addition to hiding the attacks origin, this
sort of attack can enable numerous proxy
IPs to deliver smaller payloads, which
can circumvent rate limiting security
measures designed to thwart DDoS attacks. According to Incapsula, last year
fewer than 5% of DDoS attacks originated
from anonymized proxy servers, but that
number is closer to 20% today. The firm
reports that these attacks, on average, can
generate 540,000 requests per instance
from 1,800 different IP addresses. Its like
a botnet in a box.
The Many Faces Of DDoS

One of the biggest issues organizations face when trying to prevent
modern DDoS attacks is that no two are
exactly alike. Commenting on the disparity in DDoS attack durations, Orans
says, DDoS attacksand the associated
Hacktivism is a common driver for DDoS attacks. So

if your organization could be viewed as controversial, it
could be the target of a DDoS attack.
LAWRENCE ORANS
Research Vice President : Gartner
downtimecan last from several minutes

to several days. Some attacks are perpetrated by individuals who are using a
DDoS toolkit, others are state sponsored
acts of international espionage, others still
are run by bot herders skilled at staying
ahead of DDoS mitigation strategies.
Motivations of these attackers are similarly all over the map, and the intensity of
the attacks can vary. The best strategy is to
stay one step ahead of the attackers.
Stop DDoS Attacks

Incident response is a critical aspect
of any DDoS mitigation program, Orans
says. According to a Gartner report authored by Orans, there are three core
strategies enterprises should employ to
limit the success of any DDoS attack. At
the outset, organizations can begin forwarding all traffic to a dedicated cloudbased scrubbing center, where the
legitimate requests are filtered from the
false ones and then redirected to their intended destinations. A CDN (content delivery network) is another way of fighting
fire with fire. It hosts content on dozens,
hundreds, even thousands of servers,
where the loss of a few here or there
has little effect on legitimate requests.
This too is a cloud-based solution. For
some organizations, it makes the most
sense to maintain and run on-premises
DDoS mitigation equipment capable of
thwarting small-scale and low-volume
attacks.
According to Gartners report, smaller
organizations that rely heavily on
Internet-facing servers can hedge their
bets in a variety of ways. One way is to
appoint a small team of IT personnel to
make decisions about how, when, and
where to redirect traffic in the event of a
DDoS attack.
Its also important to open lines of communication with your ISP to determine
how to quickly block traffic from IP addresses used to launch a DDoS.

Large files on servers are a favorite
target for unsophisticated DDoS attacks,
so its a good idea to keep as few of them
accessible to outside users as possible. If
your organization has an old database of
tutorial videos, for example, upload them
to a third-party hosting service, such as
the companys official YouTube account.
Perform a thorough audit and remove
anything that may saturate the available
bandwidth if exploited.
Another proactive approach you can
take in advance of a potential DDoS attack is a carefully considered ranking of
your online services, from those that are
most crucial to those your organization
could stand to take offline for a short period. If and when an attack comes, use the
list to conserve bandwidth until the attack
runs its course.
Communication is vital. In addition to
having a small group of decision makers
in charge of response, these people also
need to have clear rules about how to
keep the rest of the company informed
as well as how to communicate the situation to customers, clients, the public, and
third-party organizations being enlisted
to help. Running periodic drills can also
be an effective way to keep this team and
your DDoS plans operating as expected.
Your Best DDoS Action Plan

The nature of a typical DDoS attack
makes it very difficult to combat, but
when you add the use of proxy servers,
the ready availability of DDoS toolkits,
and the ease of launching an anonymous
attack, any organization can be vulnerable. Having a plan, performing periodic Web-based audits, and contracting
third-party scrubbing and filtering services are all ways to shrink that target on
your back.
51
Risk Management ROI

HOW A SOLID STRATEGY FOR MANAGING DIGITAL RISKS PAYS OFF
AS ENTERPRISES INCREASINGLY look

to digital assets to fuel growth, managing
digital risks is also becoming important.
Gartner recently projected that by 2020,
60% of digital businesses will experience
a major service failure because of IT security teams inability to manage digital
risk in new technology and use cases.
Interdependencies among IT, operational
technology, the Internet of Things, and
physical security technologies will necessitate risk-based approaches to governance and management, Gartner states.
Lacking a solid DRM (digital risk
management) strategy, a business can
truly go under, and the speed at which
it goes under is dependent on the business type, says Bob Tarzey, Quocirca director and analyst. A bank that neglects
compliance, for example, wont last long.
Smaller businesses may get away with
it, but even they need to be aware of risk
and mitigate, he says. Conversely, possessing a solid strategy can offer peace of
mind. For compliance risk, for example,
52
mitigation costs are offset by potential

fines, but all risk mitigation is offset
by hard figures relating to lost business
and soft measures such as reputational
damage, he says.
While developing an effective DRM
strategy is important, so is knowing how
to go about it and what mistakes to avoid.
This article explores those topics.
DRM Exposed
Sean Pike, program director with IDC,
says the emergence of the term digital
risk management is really a recognition
of business transformation that has taken
place over the last 20-plus years, during
which time corporations have shifted to
large-scale digital architectures with complex IT systems requiring specific and
unique risk management processes.
Still, Pike is wary of the term. While
readily acknowledging corporations have
transformed on expanding technology platforms, he says, the idea that digital risk
management is a new discipline discounts
any transformation that has occurred within

the corporate risk office.
Overall, Pike says, managing digital
risk is vital to any organization. While
most organizations are likely already
doing it in some way, he says, its important to recognize risk management
strategies must evolve as quickly as technology changes. Some changes, such as
adopting third-platform technologies, can
significantly modify how an organization
should view risk, he says. Putting data in
a cloud architecture, for example, might
reduce the risk of data loss but also create
risk related to cross-border data flow.
For Tarzey, DRM encompasses many
aspects, including ones related to data
and performance/systems. Data-related
aspects include the risk of exposure of
regulated data (and the consequences
of such) and the risk of theft of IP (and
competitive impact of that). Performance/
systems-related aspects include the impact of poor systems performance on
a businesss ability to function and the
inability to get business processes running again after a disaster. Mobile devices,
using or not using the cloud, hacking,
insider threats, etc. introduce numerous
other risks, although these nearly always
link back to data or performance/systems
DRM aspects, Tarzey says.
Michela Menting, ABI Research practice director, says intrinsic to DRM is the
concept of information security and an
understanding of what information needs
to be protected and managing the risks of
not properly protecting information and
systems. The key is to be able to protect
information at rest and while in transit
anywhere, as it flows through the corporate network and through third-party
service and application providers, she
says. Information security is therefore a
non-negligible aspect of digital risk management, as it involves the formulation
of policies as much as the configuration
of hardware and software, such as patch
management, network scans, logging and
monitoring activity, etc.
Menting says within the DRM context,
enterprises must consider such things
as data loss prevention, encryption and
key management, and identity and access
management because each enables assessing and managing risks appropriately.
Information governance is the sort of
overarching field of application for risk
management, she says. Its as much
about management as it is about assessing
risks and determining the proper level of
security that will not too adversely impact
business productivity.
Developing A DRM Strategy

When formulating a DRM strategy,
Pike says, odds are that digital risks are
already being tracked and accounted for
somewhere within the organization, possibly in a formal risk management office
or within an IT or business continuity
and contingency function. The challenge
is coordinating efforts to gain better visibility and reduce overlap. Pike suggests
organizations start by gaining a clear understanding of their business functions,
individual processes, and technology elements that drive functions and processes.
Just understanding where data eventually
The key is to be able to protect information at rest

and while in transit anywhere, as it flows through the
corporate network and through third-party service and
application providers.
MICHELA MENTING
Practice Director : ABI Research
lands for long-term storage isnt enough.

Unforeseen risk is scattered throughout
business processes, including data acquisition/creation, short-term storage, and
data processing, he says.
After identifying employees already
tracking digital risk, Pike recommends
creating a working committee, appointing a strong leader, and mapping
initially one business process end-toend. During the process, seek business
leaders input regarding risk factors and
in-place risk mitigation strategies.
Involving risk management committees at the beginning of new business
processes and corporate initiatives will
help transform the organizations culture
from reactive to risk-assessing, he says.
Something to watch for is the dedication of individuals involved in tracking
processes and quantifying risk. Too
often, teams fail to tackle the more difficult and mundane challenges, Pike says.
If risk officers dont understand a technology or cant get support from a given
IT group or function, its very easy to
find other work, he says. Thus, difficult
tasks may never get addressed.
Elsewhere, an organizations size, regulatory requirements, methods of operations, budget, and available resources
will directly influence how risk management is implemented. Enterprises should
implement policies and management,
prevention, pre-emptive, and response
strategies, but balance them against cost
and requirements, Menting says.
Menting says that organizations most
significant considerations arguably include information risk and security processes; account and access management
processes; protection against attacks
both from within and without; early
warning and watch notifications; incident response and disaster recovery
plans; compliance information management; secure configuration for all ICT

(information and communications
technology) devices; monitor and test
security controls; internal and external
incident reporting; activity monitoring
on ICT systems and networks; incident
forensic capability; mobile and remote
working policy; records and retention
management; control access and analysis
of activity, network, and audit logs; data
loss and leak prevention; business continuity, backup, and disaster recovery;
electronic discovery; and information life
cycle management.
The Payback
Pike says theres plenty to gain from
possessing a strong, effective DRM
strategy. Arguably the biggest benefit is
transformation of the organizations culture. Organizations with a risk-assessing
culture tend to be thoughtful about how
new lines of business or technologies
will affect the rest of the organization, he
says. That level of thoughtfulness and
cooperation can reduce spending, reduce
duplication of effort, and create collegial
environments that encourage innovation, he says.
Similarly, Menting says the advantage
of having a well-planned IT structure is
that its conducive to enhancing business models and modes of operation.
The current progression and expansion
of cybercrime means that most organizations with a digital presence will eventually have to deal with an incident, she
says. Legitimate organizations have the
most to lose. Theyll need to deal not
only with cyber threats, but also with
the consequences of deficient security.
Liability can be eschewed, however, with
a well-implemented information governance framework.
53
Privacy & Credit Card Records

WHAT DOES YOUR ONLINE & CREDIT HISTORY REVEAL?
WHEN SWIPING A CREDIT CARD, it seems

most people dont really think about what
happens to the information that gets stored
in credit card records. Sure, there are processes in place to make your transactions
anonymous, but a recent study from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
found that we may not be as anonymous as
we might think. According to the findings,
it would only take the dates and locations
of four purchases to identify us from a data
set comprising three months of credit card
transactions.
Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, an MIT
graduate student in media arts and sciences
who is first author in the report, says, What
we did in this work is find that credit card
data are very identifiable by using something
we called a coalition attack. When applied
to large-scale data sets, MIT found that four
purchase points (days, shopping locations)
provided enough information to uniquely
identify an individual 90% of the time.
However, MIT didnt stop at finding
information using purchase points alone.
54
The researchers also looked at how much

knowing the approximate purchase price
would help. Armed with three extra pieces
of information about our purchases, they
would have a 94% chance of identifying
us from the credit card records. As an example, de Montjoye says, If I see what you
boughta new pair of jeans or a piece of
pizzaI could get a sense of how expensive the item was. The same type of information could be gleaned from someone
who tweets, posts a Facebook update, or
uploads an Instagram photo of their recent
purchase.
Why Is This Data Collected?

Large data sets, which are full of supposedly anonymous information, are
often used by researchers, scientists, and
pollsters to uncover important trends and
habits. Theres a lot of amazing things
that someone could do with the data for
good, such as offer a unique perspective of
consumption and the economy, including
information about inflation. Its really im-
portant that we can use this data for good

and for research, says de Montjoye.
Credit card histories, for instance, are
often studied by retailers to collect information about the most popular types
of products, where those items are purchased, and how much consumers pay for
them. Researchers studying the economy
might also use the results to derive findings about consumer spending as a whole.
Looking beyond consumer data, information in large data sets also has the potential
to help us better understand how to fight
diseases (from medical data sets), design
better cities (from traffic data), and research human behavior, according to MIT.
When this type of information is provided to researchers, things such as names,
account numbers, addresses, and other personal information is pulled from the data
set. Whats left behind is metadata, which
is information that describes other data.
Metadata might include things like location, category names, structural labels, and
other assets that help people to classify the
Theres a lot of amazing things that someone could do

with the data for good, such as offer a unique perspective
of consumption and the economy, including information
about inflation.
YVES-ALEXANDRE DE MONTJOYE
MIT graduate student in media arts and sciences
information into groups that share similar

characteristics. In this way, metadata helps
to facilitate information discovery.
Fixing The Process

The research from MIT shows that removing the personal identification information might not be enough, in some cases, to
keep our identity private. It shows that its
really hard to really anonymize rich data,
such as mobile phone or credit card metadata, says de Montjoye. I think what it
means is that we need to rethink and reform
data protection.
By data protection, de Montjoye means
addressing the privacy of information,
rather than the security of the information. Security takes into account a lot of
encryption, controls, and so on. The data
breaches that you see are often geared
more toward security issues. Security isnt
a primary consideration here because cybercriminals would need to acquire exceptionally large data sets (for perspective, the
MIT study required credit card records for
1.1 million people in order to achieve the
results that it did), and criminals would
have to be motivated enough to identify

specific individuals from the data set,
which is an unlikely prospect.
Instead of addressing security concerns,
these findings speak to a greater need for
privacy when dealing with the data sets.
MITs team has come up with a plan for
this. The idea is that we share code, we
dont share data, says de Montjoye. A
third party that wants to use the data will
Safeguard Digital Data

In addition to the proposed plan for
preserving anonymity, MIT is also working
on ways to combat data breaches and
security failures. In fact, there are three
separate efforts underway to address the
MITs report, entitled Unique
in the Shopping Mall: On the
Reidentifiability of Credit Card
Metadata, found that someone
with access to a large, anonymous
credit card database would only
need a few pieces of information
to identify you.
send you a piece of code that will complete

something within the data. The third party
would receive the answer, and data holders
would never distribute the actual information, which also means there would be less
of a chance of its being intercepted or stolen.
INCREASED PRIVACY RISK

One of the more interesting
findings in the MIT study was that
knowing the price of a transaction
increases the risk of identification
by 22%. There are several ways
that someone could take a guess at
this information, including via social
media. So privacy-minded individuals
might want to stay away from tweets
about the latest lunch hot-spot they
visited or tagging their location in a
public Facebook post.
The MIT researchers answer to this

problem is similar to what they came up
with to better anonymize credit card data.
The system, called openPDS/SafeAnswers,
would allow users to collect their own
data, and involves apps that can only ask
questions about the data inside a PDS
(personal data store). Thus, data from
GPS coordinates and accelerometer readings would be used to answer a question,
but the actual data would reside inside a
mobile device.
Cell Phone Metadata

The metadata findings are similar to
an MIT report released two years ago that
found its just about as difficult to anonymize
data from mobile phones. In this study, researchers examined data from 1.5 million cell
phone users and found that four points of
reference were all that was necessary to identity individuals 95% of the time. The findings
mean that someone (or an entity, such as a
government) with an anonymized data set
from communications networks would be
able to identify us based the cell towers we
connected to and the time of the connection.
technical, regulatory, and business cybersecurity challenges. The last of these

will be supported by a new consortium based at the MIT Sloan School of
Management. The consortium will seek
ways to improve the security of critical
infrastructure by focusing on managerial
and operational issues.
To better confront the technical aspects
of cybersecurity, and to foster improved
Web attack prevention and recovery
methods, the MIT Computer Science
and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is
bringing together experts in software,
hardware, and cryptography. Also, the
MIT CyberSecurity Policy Initiative will
gather MIT researchers to create a foundation for a sustainable cybersecurity policy.
As you can see, when the bright minds of
MIT go about solving a problem, no stone
is left unturned.
55
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professional data. In the case of Crucial's MX200
line of SSDs, capacities include 250GB ($119.99),
500GB ($219.99), and 1TB ($459.99). Whichever
model you choose, data transfers perform better
than typical hard drives to the tune of 400MBps
(megabytes per second), according to Crucial.
For security, the MX200 supports AES 256-bit
encryption, the highest level commonly available.
If you're skittish about installing an SSD on your
own, Crucial also offers an SSD Install Kit ($24.99)
for installing the drive and transferring your data.
This One's All About

Power
WWW.PNY.COM
If a good solid charge and plenty of it is
what your smartphone or tablet needs, the PNY
PowerPack ID10400 ($79.99) has plenty of it.
The device holds 10400mAh (thus the product
name) on a full charge, which translates into
as many as six recharges for your smartphone
or tablet. The PowerPack uses a standard
Micro USB cable (included), which works for
Android, BlackBerry, and Windows mobile
devices; iPhone/iPad users can use their own
Apple device cable for charging those devices.
The PowerPack ID10400 includes two separate
ports for charging two devices simultaneously
one 2.4-Amp port and one 1-Amp port.
What's more, a handy blue display indicates
the charge left on the PowerPack and the
charge status of attached mobile devices.
57
Wearable Tech
WHATS UP WITH THE LATEST GADGETS?
KEY POINTS
Fitness data from wearables
helps you to manage and enhance
the value of physical activities
and can be extremely helpful for
workout enthusiasts.
Smart watches can generally
perform the basic functions of a
smartphone, but the extra functionality varies from one device to
another.
Smart glasses have received a
lot of press, but they still require
some tweaking by designers before
being introduced to the masses.
Wearable cameras are ideal for
use with biking and skiing, and
others are being developed to help
with your golf and tennis swings.
58
WITH THE VARIETY OF mobile health

and activity trackers available nowadays, its no wonder that wearable technology is gaining popularity among
fitness enthusiasts. But theres more to
wearable devices than heart rate monitors, pedometers, and fitness or activity
trackers. Technology manufacturers are
also creating wearable devices with a
broader appeal to help folks get things
done easily and efficiently.
Wearable Device Popularity

A 2014 Parks Associates study projected that smart watch sales will reach
121 million units worldwide by 2018.
Similar to a smartphone or smart TV,
a smart watch can connect a user to
the Internet for access to real-time
data. Generally, smart watches will
offer users some basic features (current
weather, music, access to email and
texts, etc.), which are also available on
smartphones. Depending on the model,
some folks can use their smart watches
to control their smart TVs, capture pictures, video chat, and run scaled-down
versions of common smartphone apps,
in addition to using the device as an
activity tracker.
Connected digital trackers is another category in which wearable tech
is expected to see growth. This category
includes fitness tracking and wearable
GPS devices. Parks Associates anticipates that connected digital trackers will
account for 81% of all sales by 2018.
However, just because people are buying
these new devices doesnt mean that everyone loves the functions currently offered. A small number of consumers
are taking the plunge into wearables, and
survey results indicate that up to a third
of those who have no longer use their
device six months after purchase, says
Ben Lemieux, telecoms market analyst
at Visiongain.
Some wearable offerings dont provide much value, notes Nick Spencer, senior practice director with ABI Research.
Bluetooth headsets are far from popular and sales have

been declining steeply over the past five years, but they
nevertheless represent significantly more annual unit
shipments than wearable glasses or smart watches. If
product designers can make headsets more discreet, the
market could be revitalized. . . . Wearable cameras are in
vogue and becoming more widely used amongst sporting
consumers such as cyclists and snowboarders.
BEN LEMIEUX
Telecoms Market Analyst : Visiongain
Notifications on a watch are not much

more convenient than a smartphone in
your pocket, he says. In fact, the screen
size and interface restrictions of a smart
watch make it less convenient. Smart
glasses have also received a lot of press,
but Spencer says they dont offer the best
value proposition either. Screen resolutions on smartphones are evolving rapidly and smart glasses dont compete in
this regard currently, Spencer explains,
nor are the user interfaces up to scratch
for your average consumer.
A Personal Monitor
Wearable devices are capable of
gathering an incredible amount of data
about a person due to sensors embedded
in the device. There are wearable devices designed to monitor sleep patterns,
heart rate, weight, running cadence, and
posture, just to name a few. If its something a digital sensor can detect, a wearable device can monitor it for you.
As we stated, health and activity
trackers are among the more popular
forms of wearable technology to date,
and theres a good reason for this: the
health monitors provide a clear value.
The key unique selling proposition for
wearables is using sensors on the body
to measure someones health, fitness,
and activity, Spencer explains.
Up-&-Coming Wearable Devices

In researching the world of wearable devices, weve explored smart
watches, connected digital trackers, and
even smart glasses. There are a variety
of other wearable devices available, but

they arent a fit for everyone. Spencer
explains that a number of other wearable device categories either are not
ready for the mass market or are not
very compelling, or they appeal to a
niche audience. Smart cameras, for instance, are part of an established wearable device category that is of interest
to a specific market, as are 3D motion
trackers, which may be ideal for use by a
variety of sporting leagues or companies
concerned about injury prevention and
recovery. Smart ear buds are also among
the specialty devices currently available.
They are more subtle than smart glasses,
and, depending on the model, can play
music, handle calls, and monitor fitness,
all via Bluetooth.
Wireless headphones have been
around for a while, but theres still
room for improvement. Lemieux says
Bluetooth headsets are far from popular
and sales have been declining steeply
over the past five years, but they nevertheless represent significantly more
annual unit shipments than wearable
glasses or smart watches. If product
designers can make headsets more discreet, the market could be revitalized.
Wearable cameras have a lot of potential
too. Wearable cameras are in vogue and
becoming more widely used amongst

sporting consumers such as cyclists and
snowboarders, notes Lemieux.
Try Before You Buy

When comparing wearable devices, we
suggest testing them out before making a
purchase. The quality of the sensors and
therefore [the] data is still variable, so
consumers need to test out how well they
are recording their data, says Spencer.
Lemieux adds that youll want to check
that the device is sturdy, durable, and
comfortable, since a number of these
devices are intended for long periods
of wear.
Ideally, the wearable device you
choose should be from a well-known
manufacturer, because youll want
the company to be committed to improving the product. Will they continue to build an ecosystem around their
product, update, and continue to support technical issues, etc? It is a reasonable assumption that many vendors are
merely dipping their toes in a trendy
pool, says Lemieux. The devices software capabilities and flexibility are important, too. Spencer points out that
software is where the value is longterm, and the thing that will keep you
coming back for more and motivated to
wear the device.
The Wearable World

Manufacturers have only recently
started developing wearable devices, and
we have yet to see a truly game-changing
device. That being said, modern sensor,
screen, and processing technology can
do wonders when combined with smart
software and analytics. If a company can
put it all together into a wearable device
that provides a set of compelling functions, such as what occurred with smartphones, you might be wearing the PC of
the future.
WEARABLE DEVICES ARE CAPABLE OF

GATHERING AN INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF
DATA ABOUT A PERSON DUE TO SENSORS
EMBEDDED IN THE DEVICE.
59
Images, clockwise from top left, courtesy of Apple (1), Samsung (2), Sony (3), Microsoft (4, 5), and BlackBerry (6)
Smartphone Tips
OUR BEST BATTERY-SAVING ADVICE
WINDOWS PHONE
Preserve Your Charge, Shut
Down Open Web Pages
You might be among the many
Windows Phone users who dont know
that opening Web pages and not closing
them means that those pages are maintaining an Internet connection (and
sapping your devices battery charge as
part of the bargain) in the background.
In Internet Explorer, tap More (three
dots), tap Tabs, and then tap X however
many times is necessary to close every
open tab. If you wish to clear all open
Internet connections in one fell swoop
(that is, connections that exist in the
background for various mobile apps),
you can do that as well by accessing
the Start screen, swiping left, tapping
Settings (gear icon), tapping Wi-Fi, and
sliding the Wi-Fi Networking switch to
the Off position.
60
Use Data Sense To Track & Limit Your Data Usage

If you are traveling internationally and need to keep tabs on how much data
youre using on your Windows Phone 8 smartphone, or if you dont have an unlimited plan and want to rein in data usage, you might be able to use your phones
Data Sense feature to manage data use. If your wireless carrier supports the app, you
should be able to find Data Sense among your installed apps. Tap Settings, Set Limit,
and Limit Type. Choose One Time, Monthly, or Unlimited based on your type of
plan (prepaid or pre-established data amount, monthly data limit, or unlimited plan,
respectively). If you chose One Time or Monthly, enter the data amounts and dates
that correspond with your cellular plan or with the limits youd like to set in the case
of international travel. If you chose Unlimited, you can simply view your data usage
but dont need to set anything. Tap Done to exit the app.
Stop Apps From Running In The Background

If there are any apps on your Windows Phone smartphone that youve used recently but arent using currently, theres a good chance those apps are running in the
background and consuming some of your phones resources. To stop an app from
running, access Settings, tap Apps, swipe to view the All tab, find the app, tap it, and
then tap Disable. Repeat these actions for every app you wish to shut down.
ANDROID
Find Energy Wasters
Stop Background Cellular Data Usage
Think your battery has seen better days?

Before you run out and buy a new smartphone, take the time to determine how
much energy your apps and various phone
features are using. You may be surprised at
what you find. From the Home page, navigate to Settings. Select About Phone and tap
Battery Use. Youll see a list of all of the apps
and background features that are running
on your phone. Even better, the list is organized in descending order, from the apps or
features that use the most amount of juice to
the ones that use the least.
The display will likely be the first item
listed. You can ignore it, because youre
actively using the system, so the display is
turned on and is as bright as possible. Make
sure the rest of the items listed are things
you want to have activated and running.
Not using Wi-Fi? Turn it off. Have apps
running that you rarely use? Disable or
delete them. Once you prune unnecessary
items, your battery may seem like its brand
new again.
One quick way to reduce your Android smartphones cellular data usage and battery consumption, which can be particularly useful when traveling, is to stop apps
from using cellular data in the background when a Wi-Fi connection isnt available. Doing this can cause apps that rely on background data usage to malfunction,
but does not impact how apps behave
when youre actively using them. On
the Home screen, tap Apps and then
tap Settings and Data Usage. Tap
the Menu icon and then tap Restrict
Background Data to select it. A popup box will caution that apps performance might be affected; tap OK to
continue. You can more carefully control how apps use data connections by
adjusting the settings within each app,
but stopping background cellular data
usage is an easy way to turn off such Restricting the background use of cellular data affects all
usage across all apps, and its just as apps, but is a quick and easy way to control data usage.
easy to turn this setting off again.
Say OK Google . . . Or Not

If youre in a location where your
Android smartphones microphone can determine what youre saying (that is, someplace without a lot of loud background
noise) and you dont mind talking to your
phone when a live person isnt listening
on the other end, go to your smartphones
home screen and say OK Google. Doing
this in Android 4.4 launches the operating
systems voice search feature, which you can
use to search the Web, contacts, or anything
on your phone.
If, however, you are looking for ways to
reduce power consumption and preserve
your batterys charge, you might not want
your Android smartphone to continually
listen for your voice. To turn off this feature,
access Google Settings, tap Search & Now,
tap Voice, and then tap the Ok Google
Hotword Detection checkbox to remove the
check mark.
Change Location & Security Settings

If you have a new Android smartphone or if youve never changed the location and
security settings on an older Android device, chances are GPS is running in the background. Having GPS at the ready is a good thing, of course, whenever you need to find
your way from point A to point B, or even to find out where exactly you are right now.
GPS is also used to encode location information into certain content you create, such
as photos you snap with your device and notes you type (depending on the app you
use). A host of other applications, however, can also be using your GPS information to
keep track of your location whenever you use the app. Sometimes this information is
used as a basis for sending targeted ads to you via the apps that collected your location
information in the first place or via email if you have agreed to terms permitting that.
Leaving GPS to run in the background also saps your battery.
To turn off GPS, access Settings, tap Location And Security, and uncheck the Use
GPS Satellites checkbox. To turn off location tracking entirely, also uncheck the Use
Wireless Networks checkbox. Performing these actions, of course, turns off your
devices location awareness across the board. If you would like to make some less
drastic location-related changes, you can access the settings of individual apps that
you dont want to track your location and change those settings to disable tracking.
Put Your Android To Sleep

One quick way to cut back a little more on your Androids battery consumption
might be to adjust its sleep setting, depending on what setting youre currently using.
Access Settings, tap Display, and tap Sleep to view the settings. Choosing 1 minute or
less (30 seconds or 15 seconds) will prompt your smartphone to turn off the soonest
when it isnt in use.
61
BLACKBERRY
Keep It Cool
Adjust Backlight Settings
The lithium-ion batteries used in mobile devices such as BlackBerry smartphones retain more capacity over time if
they are kept cool. Precise capacity loss
varies depending on multiple factors,
including how frequently the battery is
charged and what level of charge is maintained, but it is generally the case that
devices stored with 100% charge at 32
degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius)
will lose roughly 6% capacity per year,
while those stored at 77 F (25 C) will lose
around 20% capacity per year, and those
stored at 104 F (40 C) will lose about a
third of their capacity per year. Storing
batteries at a lower charge (generally between 40% and 60%) reduces capacity
loss, especially when using the device in
hotter temperatures.
Its tempting to turn your BlackBerry backlight up as high as it will go and

leave it there, but doing so can drain the battery life of your mobile device and
limit the amount of time youll actually be able to use it. Some smartphones
have a dimming function that automatically senses the amount of light in a
given environment and then adjusts brightness accordingly. But if you prefer
to change the settings manually, the BlackBerry OS includes an easy-to-use
tool for that purpose. Access Settings and tap Display. This screen offers a variety of options related to your smartphones display, including the ability to
change your font size. To dim or brighten your backlight, adjust the brightness
slider as you like.
Use Battery Saving Mode

Starting with BlackBerry OS 7.1, the
BlackBerry OS includes a handy feature that benefits everyone. Battery
Saving Mode works by monitoring your
BlackBerrys battery. When the battery
reaches a user-defined threshold, such as
30% remaining, Battery Saving Mode automatically invokes battery-saving features,
such as dimming the screen or turning off
the screen sooner than usual. To enable
this feature, access Quick Settings, and tap
Battery Saving. If you are using Battery
Saving Mode at any given time, plugging
the BlackBerry in for a charge will automatically turn the mode off.
Check Your Battery Level

Even when your BlackBerry is locked,
you can turn it on to check out notifications, place an emergency phone call,
take a picture, and do a few other things,
including view your batterys current level
of charge. Keep the screen locked to save
battery life.
62
Charge Your BlackBerry

Correctly
If you have a new BlackBerry
smartphone, such as the Z30 shown
here, there are things you can do
to avoid power problems down
the road. BlackBerry recommends
charging the device only with the
charger that came with it in the
box because other chargers might
not provide the precise amount of
charge and could slowly damage the
battery. And although its perfectly
fine to use a USB charging cable
connected to a computer, try not
to make this your primary method
of keeping the BlackBerry charged.
BlackBerry also recommends
charging for a short period of time
(less than 15 minutes at a shot).
Close Background Apps

To free up a few CPU cycles, just press and hold the Menu button to display a
list of recently opened applications, select an application you want to close, press
the Menu key, and then select Close to fully exit the application. Otherwise apps
can run in the background and tap into your BlackBerrys power.
Another Way To Check Your Battery Level: Just Ask

The Voice Control app for BlackBerry 10 enables you to accomplish many
tasks quickly, including checking your current battery level. With the app running, press and hold the hardware Mute button, and after the beep ask, What
is my battery level?
iOS
Auto-Lock To Save Power
Adjust The Equalizer To Save Battery Life
To maintain a longer battery life

per charge on your iPhone, lock the
phone when not in use by pressing the
physical lock button on the top right
corner of the device. You might think
it would help to power off the phone
every time you dont need it, but the
startup process is particularly taxing
on the battery. Its typically best to
auto-lock the device. To do this, tap
Settings, General, and Auto-Lock, and
specify the amount of time you want to
lapse before your iPhone automatically
locks itself.
You may not be aware that using the iPod Equalizer settings while listening to
music and other audio content can drain the battery. Disable the EQ by tapping
Settings, Music, EQ, and Off. Keep in mind that in order to get the same batteryconserving effect if you changed your EQ settings in iTunes, youll have to set EQ
on iPhone to Flat by tapping Settings, iPod, EQ, and Flat.
Back Up Select Data With iCloud

Whether or not you use Apples
iCloud service to keep data in sync
across iOS devices, you may not be
aware that backing up your iPhone
data isnt an all-or-nothing proposition. With iOS 8, you can select precisely the categories of data you
would like to back up and keep in
sync via iCloud. Establishing limits
in this way can lighten the load (or,
more accurately, the upload) during
backup, saving precious time and battery life. To make these changes, access Settings and tap iCloud. You can
then toggle the appropriate switches to
sync or not sync data associated with
iCloud Drive, Photos, Mail, Contacts,
Calendars, Reminders, Safari, Notes,
and Passbook. Here you can also
toggle on or off the Backup function,
Keychain (for storing passwords and
credit card information), and Find My
iPhone (a feature that lets you locate
your iPhone on a map should it become lost or stolen), and view current storage and backup information
for your iPhone (tap Storage to view
usage statistics, view available iCloud
capacity, or purchase additional capacity). When youre finished making
changes, tap Settings and exit Settings.
Adjust Brightness To
Curb Battery Drain
To cut down on excessive battery drain in your iPhone, decrease
the screen brightness. Tap Settings,
tap Display & Brightness, and then
drag the slider to the left to dim the
screen brightness. Turning on AutoBrightness with the switch on this
screen can also help. Doing this
causes the iPhone to automatically
adjust brightness based on the current ambient light conditions.
Background Apps
Affect Performance
Your iPhone can sometimes seem
as if its dragging its feet. There are
many possible causes for this, but one Turning off the equalizer is a good way to prolong your
of the most common is that too many iPhones battery life.
background apps are running. Apps
that you use but dont quit sometimes
wind up running in the background,
waiting to be called up again. When theyre in the background, most apps dont
use much in the way of resources, but if there are too many of them, they can
contribute to a general slow-down. To keep your iPhone feeling lively, try quitting
some of those background apps. Double-tap the Home button to bring up a list of
background apps. Tap and hold an app you wish to quit. Wait for a red circle with
a minus sign to appear on the app. Tap the circle and the selected app will quit.
Repeat for any other apps you wish to quit.
Cut Signals To Temporarily Preserve Battery Life

Whether youre using your iPhone or not, the Wi-Fi radio continually scans
and therefore slowly drains your battery. To turn off Wi-Fi, tap Settings, tap WiFi, and slide the switch to the Off position. Turning off cellular data is another
great way to conserve battery life. To do this, tap Settings, tap Cellular, and set
Cellular Data to the Off position.
63
Data Usage & International Travel

HOW TO AVOID RACKING UP UNEXPECTED CHARGES
ASIDE FROM A FEW exceptions, such

as the lack of 4G LTE (Long Term
Evolution) network availability outside
of the United States, advances in communication technologies are making it
easier to use your mobile devices when
traveling abroad. Theres one common
problem, however: American travelers
using cellular services beyond U.S.
shores can easily get stuck with hefty
wireless bills. Whether you use a smartphone, tablet, laptop, portable hotspot,
mobile broadband modem, or other
device, if it relies on cellular communications, it could cost you. We explain
how to fend off excessive charges, regardless of the device.
Understand Roaming
Roaming occurs whenever a wireless carrier other than your own provides your device with a cellular signal.
International roaming rules and rates
are typically different from those that
apply in the U.S., so heres the No. 1
64
roaming rule to keep in mind when

traveling abroad: Never assume anything. If you think that an unlimited
plan doesnt change if you travel outside the U.S., that isnt so. Or if you
believe that roaming charges will skyrocket if you only use the Internet and
that exchanging a few simple text messages or checking voicemail wont add
up very quickly, you will be mistaken
because roaming rates often apply to
anything you do with your device when
it involves a cellular connection.
Also, depending on your devices
carrier and settings, you may or may
not receive an obvious notification
when roaming, so you wont necessarily be prompted when the tally of
charges starts to rise. On the flip side,
you might not be able to roam internationally unless you enable roaming
before you travel. It is imperative, then,
that you fully understand how your
wireless plans roaming features and
rates work before you leave the States.
Barring that, bring your carriers tollfree customer service phone number
with you; if you have any doubt as to
how your plans roaming rates work
when traveling, use a local phone to call
that number and find out.
Know Your Phone &

What It Can (& Cant) Do
When it comes to frequencies, wireless carriers, and foreign cellular networks, there are few absolutes. Its
imperative that you determine what
frequencies your device uses and
whether those frequencies match the
networks available in your destination
countries, because if they dont match,
your device wont work at all for voice,
messaging, or data transmissions.
Devices that use CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) cellular networks are very limited in terms of
international use. You need one that
works with GSM (Global Standard For
Mobile Communication) networks
if you want it to work in the largest

number of countries. And if you have
a device that uses 4G, research whether
your destination supports the technology before you take the device
abroad. When identifying what frequencies your device supports, find out
the exact frequenciesdont settle for
simply GSM (because there are multiple GSM networks) or brochure verbiage that suggests the device will work
anywhere you go.
Some devices only function on one or
two frequencies. Some CDMA phones
work only on CDMA networks, while
others include added support for two
or more GSM frequencies. In general,
the best devices for international travel
are those labeled world (as in world
phone) or global. These are typically quad-band GSM devices, which
means they operate on all four GSM
frequencies (850/900/1800/1900MHz),
and sometimes on CDMA and 3G/4G
frequencies as well, and will therefore
work in most locations.
Unlock Your Device

It might be necessary to unlock your
smartphone or other cellular device
before you travel so that it will work
not only with networks, but also with
wireless carriers, in other countries.
Call your carrier to find out if this is
necessary and to receive a code or other
means to unlock the phone.
frequencies commonly used worldwide. Or it may involve switching your

wireless plan to a global roaming
or similarly named plan or adding a
special Internet data bundle that will
allow you to travel internationally and
roam all you want for a relatively affordable price.
Track Usage To Avoid Surprises

If you know your devices international roaming rates and you wish
to keep expenses down, it can help to
track voice, messaging, and data usage
on your device. Most smartphone and
tablet operating systems include settings that let you view data usage, and
they many include options for setting
self-imposed limits on usage.
Use VoIP On Wi-Fi

One inexpensive (and sometimes
free) method for placing voice or
video calls while traveling is to connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot and use a VoIP
(voice over IP) app. Dont rely on this
method, however, as common VoIP
services can be blocked in some countries and by some hotspot providers.
And, as always, make sure that any
Wi-Fi hotspot you connect to is secure
so that technically inclined eavesdroppers cant listen in on your conversations, view your data transmissions, or
nab your website passwords.
changes you can make to various device

and app settings without shutting off
data transmissions entirely.
In the device/OS settings, look for
options with phrases that relate to
fetching new data, using packet data,
and roaming that you can switch off.
Devices differ, so experiment with
these settings; assuming you want to
continue to use the device on international networks but want to limit unnecessary data traffic, the idea behind
changing these settings is to turn off
only those features that work in the
background, searching for new data on
an ongoing basis.
Additionally, review any apps installed on your device. You may want
to change the settings within individual
apps so that they will only update on
demand (when you manually tap a
Sync button, for example) rather than
searching for updated data in the background. You may also find that some
apps only work with an active wireless
connection, so you may want to install
different apps (at least temporarily)
that work offline or only when a Wi-Fi
connection is present.
Use A Temporary Device

If you prefer to forgo all of the steps
in this article, consider picking up a
rental or pay-as-you go smartphone.
These are available in many international airports.
Limit Data Usage

Get A New Device Or Plan
If your device or wireless plan is presenting you with limitations or potentially excessive fees, consider switching
to a new device or a new plan. This
might involve replacing your current device with one that operates on
It used to be simple to limit data

usage on mobile devices: go into settings and switch Data to Off. While
this (or something like it) is still possible on many phones, tablets, and
other devices, there are nowthanks
to a plethora of mobile appsmultiple
KEEP IN MIND THAT YOU CAN CALL YOUR

WIRELESS CARRIER ANYTIME TO SPEAK WITH
A CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE AND
FIND OUT DETAILS ABOUT YOUR PHONES
CELLULAR CAPABILITIES, YOUR WIRELESS
PLANS, AND HOW THOSE THINGS WORK
TOGETHER IN THE PLACES YOURE GOING.
Remember, You Have A Lifeline

& A Panic Button
Keep in mind that you can call your
wireless carrier anytime to speak with
a customer service representative and
find out details about your phones cellular capabilities, your wireless plans,
and how those things work together in
the places youre going. If youre already
overseas, though, use a local phone to
call customer service so you dont rack
up additional charges. Finally, if all else
fails, use your devices airplane mode
setting as a form of panic button to
ensure that you wont be charged for
wireless services while you figure everything out.
65
Social Media Privacy Tips

TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR ONLINE PRIVACY
SOCIAL MEDIA IS ALL about sharing our

lives with friends and family, and vice
versa. From daily musings about life, such
as a friend thats excited about an upcoming vacation, to important events,
like the birth of a new grandchild. And
although it might not seem like the news,
photos, personal achievements, failures,
and of course, cute animal videos, you
post would be of much interest to people
you dont know, the information could
be useful to cybercriminals trying to steal
your identity. The default privacy settings
on many social media websites make it
so your posts, tweets, and photos are visible to the public. Fortunately, its easy to
adjust the privacy settings, so that only
the people you know will see the updates.
Here, well guide you to alter the privacy
settings on Facebook, Twitter, Google+,
and LinkedIn.
Facebook
When setting up your Facebook profile,
the service will ask for a lot of personal
66
informationincluding education history, workplace, and phone numberthat

you might not want visible to everyone.
To complicate matters, Facebook hasnt
exactly been known for consistency when
it comes to users' privacy settings, as past
interface changes have reset settings and
forced users to continually ensure their
posts and personal information remain
private. To correct some of these issues,
Facebook has made changes in the last
year to simplify its privacy controls.
Click Privacy and youll see a list of
configurable options. For example, in the
Who Can See My Stuff? section, you can
manage who can see your future posts by
selecting Public, Friends, Friends Except
Acquaintances, Only Me, or Custom.
This way, you can make certain that your
posts won't be viewable to the public at
large if you forget to change the privacy
settings when you post an update. You
can also review the posts youve been
tagged in, as well as change the audience
for updates youve previously posted.
This way, you can control whether any

old updates are available to the public.
There are also Who Can Contact Me?
and Who Can Look Me Up? settings
where you can filter access to non-friends.
Because these options are the only settings
in the Privacy tab, you might think thats
all youll need to change. Its not.
One of the easiest ways to assess the
entirety of your Facebook privacy is to
use Facebooks Privacy Checkup. You
can access this tool by selecting the
Privacy Shortcuts button (Lock icon) in
the top-right corner of Facebook. Select
Privacy Checkup and in the resulting
pop-up window, Facebook shows you
the controls for who can see your posts.
If youre following our steps, youve already addressed this step. Click Next
Step and youll see what apps youve
logged into with Facebook. Delete the
apps you no longer use. When you're
done, click Next Step.
Finally, Facebook will bring up the information shared on your profile. Here,
youll see options to add a phone number,

email, birthday, hometown, and other
information. Click Finish Up to finalize
your new privacy settings. All of the information in the last step can be found in
the About section of your profile, which
also contains several other pieces of information you might want to make private.
To do so, click your personal timeline and
select About. Under the tabs for Work
And Education, Place Youve Lived, and
Contact And Basic Info, you can adjust
the privacy settings for details that werent
part of the Privacy Checkup.
Facebooks primary privacy settings can be found in the

Privacy window.
Twitter
By default, Twitters account settings
make your tweets available for all to
see. The alternative is a protected mode,
where your tweets are only visible to your
approved Twitter followers. Protected
tweets are also not retweetable, so even
approved users cant share your tweets.
You also cannot share permanent links
to your tweets with anyone but approved
followers. If you want to use Twitter to
drive Web traffic, the restrictions in the
protected mode might undermine why
you joined Twitter in the first place.
If you want to adjust your tweet privacy level, or the other privacy controls
on Twitter, start by signing into Twitter
and bringing up your account settings.
Next, click Security And Privacy and
scroll down to Privacy. If you only want
approved followers to see your tweets,
click the Protect My Tweets checkbox.
You can also control who can tag you in
photos, whether your tweets include a location, and how others can find you, such
as by email address or phone number.

After making your privacy selections,
click the Save Changes button.
Google+
For Google+, privacy has been a key
consideration from the very beginning. For
example, youve always been able to assign
a privacy level for each post you share. And
based on the Circles (friend groups) youve
set up, its easy to share content with only
a specific crowd. Google+ also offers detailed privacy settings where you can control most every aspect of your profile. Visit
your Google+ page, click your name, select
the drop-down menu under the Google+
logo, and choose Settings.
In the Settings window, you can customize who can send you notifications,
comment on your public posts, and
manage subscriptions. If you want to
configure the audience settings for your
posts, photos, and profile updates, scroll
down to the Your Circles section and click
Customize. By default, Google+ pushes
updates to the people in your Friends,
Family, and Acquaintances groups. To
block a particular group, remove the check
from the checkbox. If you want to reach a
larger group of people, you might want to
add a check to the Following checkbox, so
followers of your Google+ profile will be
added to Your Circles list.
Next, scroll down to the Profile section. Here, you can configure how people
are able to find your profile and control
what content is displayed in your profile. A setting of interest for businesses
is Allow People To Send You A Message
From Your Profile, as this setting offers a
way for consumers to reach out to you. If
the setting is limited to Your Circles or
Extended Circles, customers might not
be able to contact you.
If you use Google+ on your mobile
device, youll also want to examine the
Location Settings section. These settings let you enable or disable location reporting via your smartphone
and tablet. If enabled, you can control
who can see your current city and/or
exact location. The precise location
is ideal for those who wish to share their
location with friends and family. If thats
Google+ offers a wide variety of privacy controls.
something you dont plan to do, then it

might be best to disable location settings.
LinkedIn
The business-focused nature of
LinkedIn ensures that privacy is a priority. To examine your settings, log in to
LinkedIn, hover your pointer over your
profile photo in the right-hand corner,
and select Manage next to the Privacy &
Settings option. Scroll down to Privacy
Controls and youll find a host of options
to control what others can see on your
profile and activity feed. For example,
you can turn off activity updates that
let other connections know when you
make a change to your profile or follow
another company.
If you use LinkedIn to search for
new clients and key connections within
an organization, you can opt to remain
anonymous, so people wont know that
you looked at their profile. To do so, click
Select What Others See When Youve
Viewed Their Profile. There are two anonymous options, one where others will see
an industry and title, or you can opt to
be completely anonymous. You can also
manage who can follow your updates, edit
blocked connections, and shut down users'
ability to view your connections.
Manage All Your Online Accounts

Now that we've explored the basic steps
of managing your privacy settings, it would
be wise to at least check up on your privacy settings with other social networks you
might use, such as Instagram, Foursquare,
and YouTube. This way, you can have a
measure of control of your publicly available
online data.
67
Ease Travel Headaches

THESE DEVICES CAN HELP
IF YOU DO ENOUGH traveling, you quickly

learn tricks to eliminate some of the stress
and headaches that come with being on the
road. Technology can often help, as the following travel-friendly devices prove.
Bluetooth Finder
$20+
Ever set down the keys to your rental
car or your own vehicle on a restaurant
table only to get up, walk away, and leave
them behind? Many of us have done
this. One way to prevent the aggravation
that typically follows is to attach a small
Bluetooth dongle-like device to the key
ring. These devices communicate with
a smartphone, warning you when the
phone moves out of range of the dongle.
Typically, such devices cost about $20 or
more and have a smartphone app that
sounds an alarm, emits a beep, or even
provides a visual indicator that lets you
see when you get closer or move farther
away from the key ring or other object to
which you attached the device.
68
Bluetooth Keyboard
$60-$100+
Device Charger
$40-$100+
No matter how adept or comfortable

you are typing on a mobile devices
touch-enabled keyboard, there are
times when facing a hefty amount of
text or numbers to enter into a document or spreadsheet that would make
anyone conclude that a full-fledged
keyboard would be a better choice.
While some tablets bundle a Bluetooth
keyboard, others dont. Fortunately,
plenty of third-party options are available. Nearly all Bluetooth keyboards
are thin and light enough to make
an ideal travel companion, and some
double as a protective tablet cover as
well as conveniently fold into a stand
to present a laptop-like form factor.
Depending on the model, a particular
Bluetooth keyboard may include backlighting and specialty keys, integrate
a rechargeable battery, and provide a
carrying case. Pricing generally ranges
from $60 to $100 or more.
If theres one certainty about mobile

devices its that they dont hold their
power forever. Further, an outlet isnt
always available for recharging. Thus,
its a good idea to pack your own portable power supply so you can keep using
that smartphone, tablet, notebook, or
other device. Though price, size, and
weight can vary widely, general portable
charger options include battery packs
that are solar powered and/or integrate
a rechargeable battery. Typically, models
bundle multiple device adapters, and
some models may include multiple connectors to charge several devices simultaneously. Some packs also function as
a cover for a smartphone. Other powerrelated products worth considering
include USB power adapters that plug
into power outlets to provide a USB port
for charging, solar backpacks, power
adapters for overseas travel, and mini
surge protectors.
Luggage Tracker
$50-$100
Some people would pay a small fortune to know where their luggage is
at all times. Anyone who has experienced lost luggage understands why.
The good news is you dont have to pay
a fortune to pinpoint the exact location of your baggage. For somewhere
in the neighborhood of $50 to $100,
you can acquire a device (perhaps even
an FCC-certified and FAA-compliant
one) that uses GPS (Global Positioning
System), GSM (Global System For
Mobile Communications), and other
technologies to provide tracking abilities for luggage. These devices are
small enough to easily fit in a bag and
can do such things as email or text
you a verification that your luggage arrived at its destination. If your luggage
is completely lost, the devices let you
pinpoint the bags locations on a Webbased map.
Multi-Tool Knife
$25-$100+
While you still cant carry a pocketknife onto a plane, you can take one
with you when traveling by land, and
having a multi-tooled knife on hand
can get you out of a fair number of
jams, including in a storage sense.
Thats because beyond packing an actual blade (as well as possibly a screwdriver, scissors, wine opener, pliers,
etc.), some multi-tool knives integrate
a USB memory stick for storing and
transferring several gigabytes worth
of document, image, video, audio, and
other files. Thus, even if you lose your
notebook or tablet, youll still have important files handy. Depending on the
storage amount and model, prices of
multi-tool knives can span from about
$25 to $100 or more.
Noise-Canceling Headphones
$50-$100s
Whether in a plane, shuttle bus, taxi,
or room in a not-so-quiet hotel, noise
seemingly always surrounds a traveler. Noise-canceling headphones provide an escape from the din by using
battery-powered technology to essentially match and cancel external sound

swirling around. Alternatively, less
bulky and non-battery charged soundisolating earbuds offer comparable results by fitting into a users ear canal
to isolate sound rather than cancel it.
Depending on the mechanics, engineering, sound quality, and materials
in use, headphone and earbud prices
can stretch from $50 for an acceptable
pair to into the hundreds of dollars.
Portable Hotspot
$50+
Staying Internet-connected while
traveling is an absolute necessity for
business travelers, but doing so via
Wi-Fi isnt always easy. Although
public Wi-Fi hotspots are available,
theyre not always free and security
can be an issue. An alternative is to
use a portable hotspot device (costing
about $50 or more) that uses a mobile
broadband connection (a 4G LTE network, for example) to form a wireless
hotspot for multiple devices. Another
option is to use a portable router. Plug
an Ethernet cable into, say, a hotel
rooms wired Internet port, plug the
cables other end into the router, and
youve created a wireless network with
multiple-device support. Elsewhere,
various companies provide private
Wi-Fi services for a monthly/annual
charge that provide a welcomed layer
of security when connecting to a public
Wi-Fi hotspot.
Portable Monitor
$75-$200+
In some office environments today,
you may see two (or more) monitors
on an employees desk. This setup allows users to easily switch among open
programs, keep tabs on continually updating information in a Web browser,
and perform other multitasking chores.
Travelers can get this same secondscreen ability away from the office by
bringing along a USB-based portable
monitor. Such screens (generally $75
to $200 and more) connect and draw
power from a notebook via USB cable.
Typically, the screens support landscape and portrait modes, bundle a

stand to prop them up, and are light
enough you likely wont notice when
youre toting one around. Depending
on the model, touch abilities might
also be included.
Storage Device
$10+
One thing you cant have too much
of is storage, including for reasons
tied to accessing and backing up data.
Packing an extra memory card, USB
thumb drive, or external drive on
which you can grab or offload photos,
videos, and other files is smart. (Just
make sure not to lose the storage device on which that data resides.) If
youre expecting rugged conditions
where youre going, some external
drives and USB memory sticks offer
water- and shock-resistant features
to provide protection against the elements and drops. Overall, storage
continues to be an excellent value.
Memory sticks, for example, can start
at around $10 depending on the storage capacity.
Video Streamer
$35-$100+
Its possible you already have a settop box-like device attached to your
HDTV at home to stream on-demand
TV programs, movies from subscription services, and audio from Internet
radio stations. A nifty aspect of these
devices is that travel-friendly sizes
(some are essentially a glorified USB
stick) means they can easily stow away
in a suitcase. Unpack it once in your
hotel room; connect it to the TVs
HDMI, USB, or AV port; configure
the Wi-Fi settings; and all the content
you have at home is now available for
watching in your hotel room. Should
you forget to pack the remote control
the device bundled, many streamers
have compatible apps that enable a
smartphone or tablet to function as a
remote control. With prices ranging
from about $35 to $100 or more, these
devices are an entertainment steal.
69
Ofce In The Cloud

LEVERAGE THE WEB
JUST AS THERE ARE NOW virtual or

cloud-based versions of software and
storage solutions that used to be firmly
entrenched in physical servers and desktops, there are now Web versions of
Microsofts widely used Office products.
Word, Excel, and other Office programs
are included in a hosted service called
Office 365 (office365.microsoft.com). But
as familiar as you may be with the functionality of traditional Office products,
there are plenty of new capabilities, features, and collaborative possibilities to
explore in the Web-based version. We
offer some practical tips and how-to steps
that will help you advance from novice to
experienced Office 365 user.
Customize Your Public Website

If your company uses SharePoint
Online, you can update or add pages to
your Public Website whether you are
in the office or on the road. Click the
Page tab and select Edit to start making
changes to an existing pagesay, to add
70
new information and photos for a new

product, update a schedule, or post to
a blog. Use the Page tab to change layouts, the Insert tab to add content, or
the Format Text tab to work with text.
Or click the Page tab and select New
to create an entirely new page for the
Public Website.
Create Personal &

Team Websites
When you become an Office 365 user,
you can activate a My Site website where
you can manage and share docs hosted
by SharePoint Online. A similar feature
exists for team project management in
the Team Site, where you can create a
Team Site for syncing calendars, developing projects, and working offline. To
start a team-accessible home base site

in SharePoint, go to the Site Actions
menu, choose New Site, and then click
the Featured Items or Browse All tab.
Assign your team site a URL and title and
click Create.
Add Shared & Private Notes

During A Lync Meeting
Many times the records, lists, and
important items you save in OneNote
(Microsofts digital note-taking software)
turn into meeting agendas and tasks for
colleagues, so its convenient that Lync
lets you save private notes or share notes
for collaborative discussions. To start a
note during an in-session Lync meeting,
click the OneNote tab in the conversations
window after you pause the presentation.
IF YOUR COMPANY USES SHAREPOINT ONLINE,

YOU CAN UPDATE OR ADD PAGES TO YOUR
PUBLIC WEBSITE WHETHER YOURE IN THE
OFFICE OR ON THE ROAD.
Then select My Notes to start typing private notes or click Share Notes and choose
a section for note-taking.
in this way requires that the corresponding Microsoft Web App (Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, or OneNote) is installed.
Share A Presentation
Share Your Calendar
Lync not only lets you share your

Desktop, a program window, a whiteboard, or a poll, but it also lets you share
PowerPoint presentations. When you start
an IM (instant message) conversation,
Office 365 Outlook includes calendar

sharing options that let you select a contact or group of people who may access
your schedule. You can do so by entering
the Calendar view, clicking Share, and
THE LYNC APP IS AVAILABLE FOR A VARIETY

OF MOBILE PLATFORMS AND PROVIDES YOU
WITH CAPABILITIES SIMILAR TO THOSE OF THE
DESKTOP VERSION.
click the Share drop-down menu and select the PowerPoint Presentation option.
After the presentation uploads, you can
enable restrictions, such as who can enter
the presentation, who presents, and who is
allowed to annotate the presentation.
Send Documents Via Instant

Message
There are two ways to send a document as an attachment using Lync:
from the document itself or through
an open IM window. Within the document you intend to send, click File, click
Save & Send, and then select Send By
Instant Message. In the Address Book
window add the recipient names in the
To field, and then make sure you can
see the attachment in the IM window.
Alternatively, you can start an IM conversation with a recipient, click the paper
clip icon (for sending attachments),
choose a file, click Open, select the item
you intend to share, and send.
choosing Share This Calendar. Next, insert the individual or group who will receive the shared calendar.
Stay In Touch With Colleagues

Via Mobile App
If your company uses Microsoft Lync,
try the mobile app when youre away
from the office. The Lync app is available for a variety of mobile platforms and
provides you with capabilities similar to
those of the desktop version. Log in and
start connecting with colleagues directly
via IM, or use the app to place calls, start
an email message, or participate in a videoconference. As with the desktop Lync,
you can use the app to let others know
your present availability, as well.
Use Your Mobile Device

To Share Docs
Microsoft recommends two sharing
methods from mobile: sharing with recipients you invite to your site and
sharing via a guest link. Both methods
may require you to switch from mobile to
PC view through the Settings menu. To
share with site invitees, tap More in the
document library, then tap Share. Next,
type the appropriate names or email
addresses of those with whom youre
sharing the doc. Next, select Can Edit
or Can View; check the Require Sign-In
box. If you would like to add a message,
choose Show Options and tap Send An
Email Invitation. If you opt to send a
guest link, simply uncheck the Require
Sign-In check box.
Record Collaboration Sessions

Using Lync
Lync helps you document current
multiuser conversations, calls, and meetings so you can easily reference pivotal
conversations. To do this while youre
in Lync, direct your pointer to the conversation window and click the More
Options menu (two arrows on the right
side of the window). Next, click Start
Recording. You can access saved recordings by navigating to the Microsoft Lync
Recording Manager. Click Start, select
All Programs, and then click Microsoft
Lync. Open the Manager and choose
your preferred recording.
Edit Or View Docs In Real Time

Another advantage of SharePoint is
the ability for multiple users to work in
the same documents simultaneously. To
access a document thats available for
team editing, find the document link in
your SharePoint websites document library, hover over and click the arrow
(if youre asked to select Read Only or
Edit), and choose View In Browser or
Edit In Browser. Accessing documents
There are plenty of helpful features built into Office 365 to keep you organized. For example, you can customize your
Outlook calendar Web app as you plan meetings and work toward deadlines.
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MAY 2015 VOL. 13 ISS.

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Volume 13 : Issue 5 : May 2015

JMA WIRELESS IMPROVES WIRELESS

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Server Market Grows, Focusing

Smart Cities Bring Tech Opportunities

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Multitasking isnt just for the harried

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