In the wake of the Apple iBooks announcement back in January, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan quickly called on USA schools to fully deploy digital textbooks by 2017. To any observer of the glacial speed of digital conversion in our schools today, this goal seems aggressive.
What could help speed up the pace of these conversions? Well for one, large technology companies.
Owning diverse school curriculum and procurement customer relationships by the thousands, broad product lines, large-scale resources, partnerships, and professional services support, large technology companies could spark more BYOD and 1:1 conversions with more complete, more innovative, and more easy-to-use products and services. And they could help fix the massive challenges schools have when they look to plan and tackle these digital conversions.
Guest post from Hans Hwang, Vice President of Collaboration within Cisco Advanced Services.
At last month’s Enterprise Connect (EC), there was a lot of discussion around the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) movement, and how IT departments are enabling this “new collaboration experience.” As OJ Winge, SVP and GM of Cisco’s Collaboration Endpoints Technology Group, outlined in his EC keynote, collaboration is becoming more “mobile, social, visual and virtual.” This is especially true as employees look to smartphones and tablets to enable them to collaborate more efficiently and effectively, and get their jobs done whenever and wherever they are. This increasing desire for untethered collaboration, without compromising on the collaboration experience, means IT departments must take a side.
The Proactive Enabler or the Passive Supporter
Whether IT embraces or ignores this trend, there are serious concerns for companies: impact on network, security, governance and liability questions. IT has a choice: they can either choose to embrace the opportunities BYOD policies bring, and become known as strong enablers and leaders to employee productivity and flexible work styles. Or, IT can limit users’ device choices and act as a passive supporter for a company’s workforce.
A passive approach might be to approve only one or two specific devices, and to restrict access and limit applications. A enabling approach might be to allow a choice of mobile devices and applications, to support collaboration on these devices and to reduce security risk with technology, policy, governance and training.
Cisco Recognizes Mobility is an Integrated, Critical Element of a Collaboration Strategy Mobility has quickly risen to the #2 technology priority for CIOs as opposed to three to four years ago when it was ranked number 12. (Gartner CIO Study)
To help IT plan and prepare for the impact to collaboration, Cisco Services has introduced a dedicated practice for Mobile Collaboration Services. This new Cisco practice is designed to help IT departments connect their organizations’ business imperatives to mobile collaboration business transformation opportunities. Experts from this practice can also help organizations prepare their network and communications infrastructure to deliver a compelling collaboration experience.
Day Three of Partner Summit kicked off to a bouncing beat: Following a thumping performance by C2C, a group of world champion music DJs, SVP Edison Peres took to the stage to congratulate yesterday’s Olympic trip winners and kick off the day’s theme of Innovation.
He then introduced Padmasree Warrior, CTO and Cisco’s co-leader of Engineering, who opened her presentation with a bold statement: “We are on the verge of the most change this industry has seen in several decades.” She then explained how emerging global economies combined with technology advances are resulting in changing business models, and that the intelligent network is at the heart of innovation.
One such innovation is Cloud Connect, a new software platform the company will soon launch for enhancing cloud deployments, increasing cloud security, and simplifying cloud-based operations. Plus, customers can leverage the software to build applications customized for their own requirements.
But what does all this mean for partners? Why more opportunities, of course. To view Padma’s complete presentation, including a demo of iPad authenticating via Cisco ISE to Cisco Quad, check out the replay on Virtual Partner Summit.
Also check out this video--we spoke with partners today to hear from them what it’s like to be a Cisco partner and what’s standing out for them at this year’s Partner Summit.
And don’t miss today’s other big announcements, including Jabber for Everyone, recaps of several of today’s Business Transformation breakout sessions, how to win an iPad, and more! Read More »
These days, it’s nearly impossible to separate our work and personal lives. Network administrators likely feel this more than anyone as they try to help everyone in their organization use and onboard new smartphones and tablets. I experienced it this weekend while spending time with my cousin who came for a last minute visit from out of town. When he arrived we began to chat about the start-up he had been working for and discussed all of the potential challenges and risks that his former employer faced on the company network. I mentioned that Cisco had just run a Technical Deep Dive on Cisco’s Mobility Innovations for scalable and secure productivity.
After I mentioned the Cisco 3600 Series CleanAir Access Point and its ability to find and mitigate interference and to increase performance, his ears seemed to perk up a bit. “But,” he said “the challenge isn’t only high quality connectivity, it’s making sure that the network stays secure and that each user, whether they are connecting via wired or wireless devices, is granted the access they need to perform their job. No more, no less, and there should be no hassles for me.” Read More »
With all that has recently been written about BYOD, it’s clear that enterprise IT managers need to consider performance requirements on the wireless access point. With more clients accessing the network, the performance demands in terms of coverage and client density will increase. Furthermore, consumer devices such as smartphones and tablets may have difficulty connecting to an AP compared to a laptop. This could be attributed to the fact that most of these devices either do not support 802.11n or they support legacy 802.11g/a. If the devices support 802.11n is sometimes limited to 1x1 MIMO. An access point that has superior performance will be needed to address the growing needs of these new clients.
In the wake of the Apple iBooks announcement back in January, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan quickly called on USA schools to fully deploy digital textbooks by 2017. To any observer of the glacial speed of digital conversion in our schools today, this goal seems aggressive.
