Until now, it’s been assumed that enterprise IT leaders probably view the current BYOD (“Bring Your Own Device”) movement with about the same enthusiasm as a farmer awaiting the next locust invasion.

A recent survey from the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), however, indicates that BYOD may no longer be a “four-letter word” in enterprise IT departments. In fact, the study of 600 U.S. enterprise IT leaders—all from companies of 1,000 or more employees—shows that, if anything, BYOD now has a predominantly positive reputation in U.S. enterprise IT circles. Read More »

Tags: Bring your Own Device (BYOD), Cisco, devices, Horizons, IBSG, IT, leaders, mobile, mobility, research, security, support, survey

I really like it when a research firm goes out to do primary research. We can all pontificate about what customers want. We all have our own opinions and anecdotes.

But when Aberdeen Group wanted to find out about the current  Industrial Networking trends and directions and wanted to find out why manufacturers were converging  Corporate IT and Operational Technology (OT) networks, (and  what was the business case for it?) they went out and talked to real executives in real companies.

So,  Industrial Networking Building the Business Case for industrial Ethernet is a real-life look into what’s happening in the industry, and dares to compare industry leaders (“Best in Class”) with industry laggards.

“Manufacturing is an industry with complex operations, where the success of any organization lies in producing high quality products at lower costs at the right time. This requires companies to enable real-time visibility into operations at the plant floor as well as at the executive level to make intelligent decisions. Aberdeen’s surveyed over 150 executives to understand how industry leaders are taking advantage of industrial networking to enable real-time visibility into data to optimize production, maintenance, and safety.”

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Tags: Aberdeen Group, business case, Fieldbus, Hannover Messe, IE3000, industrial ethernet, plant floor networks, research, Rockwell

Mobility and cloud computing are colliding. So, what does this mean for the future of mobile devices? How soon will video-conference calls on our mobile devices become commonplace? How can service providers (SPs) enhance their competitive position by delivering cloud and managed services?

While research has been conducted on mobile and cloud computing as separate trends, to date very little data has existed on the impact of mobility and cloud together. To understand this dynamic market better, the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) surveyed more than 1,000 business users to understand their current and future needs with regard to the mobile cloud.

The top findings may surprise you:

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Tags: Cisco, cloud, Cloud Computing, cloud services, collaboration, fixed mobile convergence, IBSG, internet business, mobile, mobile devices, mobility, research, Service Provider, solutions group, vdi

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are leading the way to cloud services. In fact, SMBs represent two-thirds of the public cloud market, outpacing the growth of enterprise cloud adoption by about 10 points, according to a recent McKinsey report (“Outlook—Overcast and Bright: How the Cloud Is Transforming IT for SMEs,” McKinsey & Company, July 2011). Yet, many service providers (SPs) are wondering whether the rate of SMB cloud adoption makes it worthwhile to invest in cloud and managed services for SMBs. They are asking:

• Is now the time to invest in SMB-focused services?
• What do SMB customers want?
• How do SMBs want to consume cloud services?

SMB Cloud Watch is ongoing research from the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG) designed to answer these questions. Here are some highlights of our most recent findings: Read More »

Tags: Cisco, cloud, Cloud Computing, cloud services, IaaS, IBSG, infrastructure as a service, managed services, research, SaaS, Service Provider, small and medium-sized businesses, small medium business, SMB Cloud Watch, SMBs, software as a service, SP

Our Cisco WebEx colleagues in China engaged a study with Bite Communications aimed at learning more about China’s mobile workforce. “The Science of Company Productivity Survey” was launched on one of China’s leading portals for two weeks in June.

Among the findings, they learned in China, collaboration technologies can play an integral role in improving organizational effectiveness while helping employees achieve a more flexible, balanced and efficient work life. Given a range of choices, respondents chose web meetings as their preferred method of working with others.

A Quick Look at the Findings

In China, one day of the work week doesn’t seem to be any more crazy than the other. When asked when people feel most overloaded at work, the answer spanned the week!

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Tags: business advice, China, management, mobile, mobility, research, web meetings, WebEX