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Mar 06, 2024
Microsoft has launched a Copilot assistant for finance professionals that it says will automate repetitive processes and provide faster access to financial data.
The Copilot for Finance, unveiled last week, connects Microsoft's productivity apps — most importantly, Excel and Outlook — with a customer's existing financial systems to provide access to information using the Copilot interface.
"Copilot for Finance can streamline audits by pulling and reconciling data with a simple prompt, simplify collections by automating communication and payment plans, and accelerate financial reporting by detecting variances with ease," Emily He, Microsoft's corporate vice president for business applications marketing, said in a blog post.
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Feb 28, 2024
Generative artificial intelligence (genAI) has become a focal point for many organizations over the past year, so it should come as no surprise that the technology is moving into the enterprise mobility space, including unified endpoint management (UEM).
"Generative AI is the latest trend to impact the UEM space," says Andrew Hewitt, principal analyst, Forrester. "This has been the main topic of interest in the last year. We see generative AI having impacts in multiple areas, such as script creation, knowledge-based article creation, NLP [natural language processing]-based querying of endpoint data, and help desk chatbots. All of these are considerations for inclusion within the UEM stack."
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Feb 22, 2024
Once upon a time, in a world not so far away, accessing a computer remotely required all sorts of costly, complicated software and technical know-how.
These days, it's a different story. Google's free Chrome Remote Desktop service makes it dead-simple to get on any computer — Windows, Mac, Linux, or ChromeOS — from practically any other desktop or mobile device. You can access all of the remote system's contents and even click around as if you were sitting right in front of it.
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Jan 11, 2024
Google's latest foray into the world of generative AI (genAI) is focused on the retail industry with custom chatbots, intelligent inventory assistants, and edge devices customized for retail businesses.
The retail-oriented chatbot and other features were announced Thursday ahead of the National Retail Federation's annual convention. Google dubbed the chatbot a "conversational commerce solution," designed to work with a user's inventory data via websites or mobile apps. The idea is to provide businesses with an easy way to graft an AI-powered assistant — or salesperson — into existing points of sale. Google also noted the chatbot program can go from genesis to deployment in "a couple of weeks, versus months."
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Nov 30, 2023
Employee-centric super apps are mobile applications that aim to bring together all the tools and resources employees use daily within a single platform.
"A super app is a single application that sits on top of a variety of mini apps... [in a] modular approach that offers users many different functions, all in one single, familiar interface," said Eric Helmer, senior vice president and chief technology officer at IT support services provider Rimini Street.
Traditionally, organizations have used mega applications, continuing to add functionality after functionality over time, he said. However, those mega apps quickly got out of hand. They had performance issues, and users had difficulty navigating them.
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Nov 29, 2023
Private browsing. Incognito. Privacy mode.
Web browser functions like those trace their roots back more than a decade, and the feature — first found in a top browser in 2005 — spread quickly as one copied another, made tweaks and minor improvements.
But privacy-promising labels can be treacherous. Simply put, going "incognito" is as effective in guarding online privacy as witchcraft is in warding off a common cold.
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Nov 21, 2023
Back in the pre-cloud days, sharing files involved using file transfer protocol applications or else copying files to a disc and then mailing it or walking it over to a colleague (affectionately known as ‘sneakernet'). Emails could also be sent (and many people still use email as their main "file-sharing" option), but size limits on attachments and security concerns discouraged this practice.
Today's world of file sharing offers nearly endless options. Giants like Dropbox, Box, Google, Microsoft, and Apple, as well as smaller companies like MediaFire and Tresorit, all offer online cloud storage options that include file sharing, synchronization across multiple devices, and collaboration features. Once you have uploaded a file to one of these services, file-sharing is as easy as clicking a "share" button and then sending the link to a colleague via email. While most offer desktop and mobile applications, users can also upload, store, sync, and share files via a web browser.
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Nov 15, 2023
Google Calendar is a core part of the Android productivity package — but if all you're using is what you see on the app's surface, you're missing out on some pretty powerful possibilities.
Yes, oh yes: Just like so many of our modern digital tools, there's more to Google Calendar than meets the eye. And while the majority of the service's advanced options may revolve around the Calendar website, the Calendar Android app has its share of handy out-of-sight options that are specific to the mobile experience. From time-saving shortcuts to efficiency-boosting options, they're all things that have the potential to make your life easier in small but significant ways.
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Nov 06, 2023
All too often, organizations invest in large technology systems but don't see widespread employee adoption, in part because these tools don't reflect how employees actually work. At the same time, workers are clamoring for tools that will help them do their jobs better.
More than half (58%) of respondents to a 2022 Domo survey of employees in the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand said their need for technology has increased in the past five years, but their organizations' tech tools aren't meeting those needs. Some 60% of the 3,000 respondents, a mix of desk-based and deskless workers, said they could be more productive and do better work with better technology tools. And 62% said better access to useful tech would make them happier at work.
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Oct 23, 2023
Mac users are already making plenty of use of genarative artificial intelligence (genAI) tools in their apps, and a compilation from Setapp confirms the extent to which ChatGPT has already invaded Apple's platform.
Ukraine software developer MacPaw's app subscription service, Setapp, recently published its third annual Mac Apps Report. It confirms that collaborative and productivity apps dominate Mac app downloads, and claimed 70% of users surveyed already have Macs equipped with Apple Silicon processors.
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Oct 06, 2023
With the release of Coda 4.0 on Wednesday, Coda has joined the parade of productivity software vendors embedding generative AI features in their products.
Part of the Coda app's new release, the Coda AI has three main components:
A "knowledge assistant" chatbot that responds in natural language to user queries, with the ability to access data from Coda docs and data made available from third-party app integrations, from calendars to sales data.
A writing assistant that can generate drafts of content such as emails or blog posts — a feature that is fast becoming table stakes in productivity applications.
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Sep 19, 2023
Companies are increasingly using role reassignments as a strategy to sidestep expensive layoffs, according to some tech industry experts. But they see it as generally short-sighted and likely to do a company more harm than good.
As with last year's 'quiet quitting' trend, quiet cutting appears to be a concept originally coined in the media — in this case, by The New York Times. The practice involves reassigning workers to roles that don't align with their career goals to achieve workforce reduction by voluntary attrition — allowing companies to avoid paying costly severance packages or unemployment benefits.
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Sep 18, 2023
ChatGPT, Claude, Bard, and other public-facing generative AI chatbots based on large language models (LLMs) are nice enough, but they're general-purpose and not well integrated into enterprise workflows. Employees either have to go to a separate app, or companies have to spend time and effort adding the functionality to their applications via application programming interfaces. Plus, in order to use ChatGPT and other genAI chatbots well, employees have to learn prompt engineering.
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Sep 12, 2023
While some companies in recent months have been rolling back remote-work policies, Hewlett-Packard (HP) has been reticent to set any in-office mandate — or even informal goals — for its workers.
Various teams have in-office staff meetings, and employees who live close to an office site tend to come in two or three days a week. But HP sees its path to the future of work as enabling employees to have the same experience in the office as at home, thereby enticing workers to come back to their cubicles only for specific reasons, such as in-office collaboration.
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Sep 06, 2023
Financial services and small-business software provider Intuit will be rolling out an "Intuit Assist" feature to all of its major product lines, including TurboTax and QuickBooks, building on the development of its own generative AI operating system.
GenOS, as the company calls its new operating system, was unveiled in June and is the basis for the Assist feature, announced Wednesday. Intuit said that its own customer data created a competitive advantage in building GenOS, and that the large language models (LLMs) behind the operating system — which Intuit itself developed — are specialized for solving challenges faced by Intuit's customers, including tax, accounting, marketing and personal finance.
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Sep 06, 2023
OpenAI recently announced the first of its B2B product portfolio, ChatGPT Enterprise, arguably the most significant upgrade to the generative AI (genAI) platform since it launched last November.
The Enterprise version aims to address two major concerns users have had with the cloud-based AI service: What happens to corporate data that's used to customize it for specific business purposes, and how can that data be secured. The new ChatGPT offering increases security and privacy through encryption and single sign-on for enterprise authentication.
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Sep 05, 2023
We're in the "iPhone moment" for generative AI, with every company rushing to figure out its strategy for dealing with this disruptive technology.
According to a KPMG survey conducted this June, 97% of US executives at large companies expect their organizations to be impacted highly by generative AI in the next 12 to 18 months, and 93% believe it will provide value to their business. Some 35% of companies have already started to deploy AI tools and solutions, while 83% say that they will increase their generative AI investments by at least 50% in the next six to twelve months.
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Aug 30, 2023
Now, look who wants a four-day workweek: the United Auto Workers (UAW).
The union is negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement between the Big Three Detroit automakers and the UAW's 150,000 members and voted Friday to authorize a strike if necessary. Among the "audacious" proposals UAW President Shawn Fain has proposed are a 46% pay raise, a return to traditional pensions — and a 32-hour, four-day workweek.
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Aug 28, 2023
OpenAI today unveiled ChatGPT Enterprise, a version of its generative AI service that allows companies to decide how the model is trained and how long it can store corporate data used for that purpose.
The new ChatGPT service also offers increased security and privacy by using encryption for data at rest (AES-256) and in transit (TLS 1.2 ) and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) single sign-on for enterprise authentication.
OpenAI also said it has opened up the bandwidth for organzaitons to connect to GPT-4, the large language model (LLM) on which ChatGPT is based and trained on. The company plans to offer "unlimited higher-speed" access to the LLM, and 32k token context windows inputs and follow-ups that are four times longer than previously available. (One token is approximately 4 characters or 0.75 words. As a point of reference, the collected works of Shakespeare are about 900,000 words or 1.2M tokens, according to OpenAI.)
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Aug 28, 2023
Increasingly, organizations are under pressure from numerous stakeholders to incorporate sustainability practices into their business strategies. As companies set ambitious environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals, they often look to providers of sustainability management software to help them reduce their environmental impact and ensure employees are treated fairly.
What is sustainability management software?
Sustainability management software, also known as ESG software, helps organizations of all sizes track and report on metrics related to their ESG goals, such as greenhouse gas emissions, waste production, energy consumption, and more, said Abhijit Sunil, senior analyst at research firm Forrester.
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Jul 18, 2023
At its annual Inspire event for resellers Tuesday, Microsoft offered new details on how it is rolling out generative AI capabilities across its product line, announcing that Copilot will be available to customers for $30 per user per month for Microsoft 365 E3, E5, Business Standard and Business Premium customers.
Copilot is a generative AI assistant that sits across the company's suite of business productivity and collaboration apps and can automate tasks and create content — including analyzing Excel data, designing PowerPoint presentations, and summarizing Teams meetings.
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Jul 10, 2023
Sterlite Technologies. (STL), a global fiber optics provider, has been increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to automate the company's employee recruitment and hiring, conduct staff pulse checks, and gamify worker rewards.
The India-based company employs about 8,000 people across the US, China, Europe, India, and the Middle East. Since rolling out its first AI-based applications three or so years ago, Chief Human Resources Officer Anjali Byce has continued to experiment with new uses for the technology, and is currently eyeing how generative AI tools such as ChatGPT could create chatbots to converse with employees for a variety of purposes.
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Jul 06, 2023
After several delays, a New York City law requiring companies to vet their automated employee hiring or promotion tools went into effect Wednesday in an attempt to thwart biases baked into software used by HR offices.
New York City Local Law 144, also known as the Bias Audit Law, will require hiring organizations to inform job applicants that algorithms automating the process are being used and have a third-party perform an audit of the software to check for any bias.
Some experts believe the law governing the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in hiring could become a blueprint for reforms across the country.
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Jun 29, 2023
Often associated with gaming, virtual reality may one day have a place in the office too, providing a more immersive experience and greater sense of presence than is possible with a video call.
That's the idea behind Meta's Horizon Workrooms, a virtual 3D environment where colleagues can meet and interact just as they would in person, regardless of where they are physically located. Although a VR headset isn't required to participate in a Workrooms meeting, when accessed via the company's Quest Pro — a high-end headset launched last year and aimed at business use — attendees' avatars are capable of a range of expressions, due to the headset's five internal infrared sensors, which can track a user's eye and facial movements.
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Jun 20, 2023
Productivity platform ClickUp has added a host of new role-based AI capabilities, designed to help boost productivity for employees across all departments.
The new capabilities, dubbed ClickUp AI, provide more than 100 fully templated prompts that deliver role-based AI tools for teams, including marketing, sales, engineering, and project management.
For example, prompts for generating promotional material include providing ClickUp AI with information about the target audience, a product's unique selling points, details of the promotion such as discount codes, and tone of voice.
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Jun 06, 2023
Palo Alto-based startup Glean, founded in 2019 by former Google, Microsoft and Meta employees, has released a new generative-AI based assistant, dubbed Glean Chat, designed to boost productivity and efficiency across enterprises via a conversational search interface.
Defining Glean Chat — an add-on to the company's namesake enterprise search product —as the "Power BI of unstructured data," CEO and founder Arvind Jain said that the generative AI assistant is targeted at helping employees find information across an enterprise's applications and content repositories quickly and efficiently, with source citations.
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May 24, 2023
What's the king of the note-taking apps?
There are two leading contenders for the crown: Microsoft's OneNote and the independent Evernote. Launched in 2003, OneNote was added to the Microsoft Office suite (most versions of which are now called Microsoft 365) in 2007. OneNote is now also bundled with Windows 10 and 11 and offered for free as a standalone product.
Evernote launched in 2008 and has enjoyed steadily increasing user numbers since then; the company says it has 225 million users worldwide. (Microsoft hasn't released user numbers for OneNote, but between Microsoft 365 and Windows 10 and 11, more than a billion users likely have a version of it installed on their machines.)
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May 08, 2023
You probably review your IT systems regularly to determine what is in need of replacement or upgrade, but what about your phone system? Does it date back to the last century? If so, you're missing out on new technologies that can increase productivity and support a more distributed workforce.
Phone systems are traditionally based within the corporate headquarters, but you can instead opt for a modern, cloud-based, all-in-one communication platform that requires no hardware to be deployed anywhere within your offices. All you need is a big internet pipe.
That's where Unified Communications as a Service, or UCaaS, comes in.
What is UCaaS?
UCaaS is the software-as-a-service version of Unified Communications (UC) software, which combines of multiple communication technologies and strategies into a single, comprehensive, and integrated platform.
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May 02, 2023
Box is getting set to launching Box AI, comprising generative AI models that will be natively integrated into the company' Content Cloud to help users surface information faster and generate new content in order to boost productivity.
The new Box AI capabilities will be powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT API and at launch, will only be available inside the Box Content Cloud, although the company said it has plans to embed Box AI across the Box product suite and support more complex use cases.
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Apr 27, 2023
Enterprise content management (ECM), an umbrella term for the processes and tools that organizations use to capture, store, secure, retrieve, and manage business data in its many forms, is dead.
So declared Gartner in 2017. Companies still needed to manage all that content, of course, but vendors were adopting a new approach that required new terminology, the research firm said.
The goal of ECM applications was traditionally to store and manage an organization's content within a single, centralized platform to protect assets, ensure regulatory compliance, and improve business efficiency. But these all-in-one systems proved to be inflexible in real-world use, so vendors re-architected them to be cloud-enabled and much more modular. Gartner dubbed the new approach content services and called the vendors' products content services platforms.
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Apr 21, 2023
So, you've got email, you say? Lots of it? More than you can possibly manage without losing the few metaphorical marbles still sloshing around in that soggy ol' brain of yours?
I hear ya. In fact, I think we all can relate (even those of us whose brains are, erm, slightly less soggy). And I'm here to tell you: It doesn't have to be so difficult.
Gmail has a variety of built-in tools for making your messages more manageable. Some of 'em are a little bit different from what you might be accustomed to using in more traditional email clients (here's lookin' at you, Outlook) — but if you take the time to figure out how they work, you might just be surprised at how effective they can be.
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Apr 17, 2023
The US Federal Reserve (Fed) is preparing to launch a new financial network that would eliminate any wait time for sending and receiving payments. The system is now being tested by more than 100 market participants.
The FedNow Service, which has been in pilot since Jan. 2021, is planned to launch in July.
"It's a game changer for some businesses," said Debbie Buckland, a director analyst for financial services at research firm Gartner. "It's the first Federal Reserve-sponsored real-time system."
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Apr 07, 2023
Overall spending on IT products and services is expected to climb by about 5.5% this year, fueled mainly by software and services, according to a forecast from tech analyst firm Gartner Research. That level of growth would result in a total expenditure of $4.6 trillion.
In the area of data center systems, which includes servers, internal controller-based systems and networking equipment among other things, the latter is likely to prove a robust engine of growth, with Gartner predicting 8.4% year-on-year growth in constant currency. According to the forecast's author, John-David Lovelock, the data center category as a whole should rise by 3.7% in 2023.
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Apr 04, 2023
Windows may get all the press coverage, but when you want to get real work done, you turn your attention to the applications that run on it. And if you use spreadsheets, that generally means Excel.
Excel is, of course, part of Microsoft's Office suite of productivity tools. Microsoft sells Office under two models: Individuals and businesses can pay for the software license up front and own it forever (what the company calls the "perpetual" version of the suite), or they can purchase a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription, which means they have access to the software for only as long as they keep paying the subscription fee.
When you purchase a perpetual version of the suite — say, Office 2019 or Office 2021 — its applications will never get new features, whereas Microsoft 365 apps are continually updated with new features. For more details, see "Office 2021 vs. Microsoft 365: How to choose."
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Mar 23, 2023
Ah, PowerShell. A simple blue window and some text has transformed the world of Windows administration from a point-and-click GUI to scripts that automate everything, as well as provide log rotation and identity lifecycle management and govern which server receives which updates.
Everything in the newest versions of Windows Server as well as Microsoft 365, Azure, Intune, Viva, and all of the other cloud jazz is accessible primarily via PowerShell and only secondarily (and sometimes even not at all) via the server's GUI or a web interface. That means PowerShell knowledge has become a must. Sometimes, though, it is difficult to know whether you are proceeding correctly. Luckily, there are resources available that will help speed you along in your training and professional responsibilities.
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Mar 21, 2023
Reality? What reality?
Soon, apparently, everything from brand assets to corporate videos to illustrations will be created differently using Adobe's creative and enterprise apps and its generative AI tool Firefly. You'll literally be able to speak to paint (or make video).
If you can say it, you can draw it
At Adobe Summit, the company also announced Adobe Express for Enterprise, a new tool to create, share, and collaborate on high-quality brand content such as multimedia assets, social posts and more. It's about to introduce generative AI tools within Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and its customer experience tools. And it rolled out a new content creation tool for enterprise users.
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Mar 13, 2023
I'm sure you've seen the ads: "Get Perpetual Office for a dirt-cheap price that's so cheap it's too good to be true."
It is, though they don't phrase the pitch quite like that. Instead, the advertisement says: "One-time purchase. No subscription. This is a Microsoft Office 365 account that activates up to 5 devices on all supported platforms, including Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, iPadOS, Tablets. You can install and activate as many times as you want on all 5 devices. Activation is permanent and lifetime. You can always reinstall or transfer to another device. Cloud storage is not included. The login name provided cannot be changed or merged with a personal account. Microsoft Office 365 includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Access, and Publisher. This software is multilingual, you can choose your language during installation. Digital Download - Redeem instructions will be emailed to you after purchase."
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Mar 08, 2023
DuckDuckGo, the search engine focused on user privacy, announced today that it is rolling out an AI-powered instant answer service, which it calls DuckAssist, as part of a larger plan to integrate AI across its product lineup.
DuckAssist, in broad strokes, is a generative AI system that uses technology from ChatGPT makers OpenAI as well as another generative AI company, Anthropic, to generate its own answers to certain types of question.
It does this without tracking user queries and sticks to a specific set of data sources — namely, Wikipedia and other mostly reputable online encyclopedias. This is done to minimize "hallucination," which is the phenomenon where generative AI simply makes up an answer to a question out of whole cloth when it has incomplete or incorrect information to go on.
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Mar 06, 2023
Microsoft today unveiled a generative AI chatbot for business users that will draft email responses to customers, create textual summaries of Teams meetings, and generate marketing and sales email campaigns.
Based on OpenAI's GPT-3, Microsoft's new Dynamics 365 Copilot is an extension to its existing CRM and ERP software, working alongside those applications to assist in answering questions, creating content, and summarizing conversations and notes. The announcement furthers Microsoft's ongoing AI push in its business-centric apps.
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Mar 06, 2023
Before employing artificial intelligence (AI) to find job candidates, Southwest Airlines had no definitive way to track the success of the company's email and website hiring campaigns. The airline also couldn't queue up potential applicants who'd logged into a job listings page and left before an applicable position had been posted.
Since it began using an AI-enabled hiring platform from tech firm Phenom, the airline now has "a warm pipeline of candidates" it can draw on whenever jobs opportunities arise, according to Kelby Tansey, manager for recruitment marketing at Southwest Airlines.
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Feb 15, 2023
If there was ever any doubt about the future of unified endpoint management (UEM) as a key component of enterprise mobility strategies, the now-permanent shift to hybrid and remote work models has sealed the deal. UEM has become a critical part of enterprise efforts to manage this complex environment.
Forrester Research's 2022 Business Technographics Infrastructure Hardware Survey shows that 28% of infrastructure hardware technology decision makers will be investing in UEM over the next 12 months. "This is in line with previous years, so we continue to see stable growth in the UEM market," says Andrew Hewitt, senior analyst at Forrester.
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Feb 10, 2023
The tools available in Microsoft Office are versatile, but sometimes you want to do something that Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word can't accommodate. Chances are good that you can find an add-in that will give you that little extra something.
Hundreds of add-ins are available for Office, but surprisingly few stand out. We've gathered 10 that we think will be useful for a wide variety of business users. (Note that some require Microsoft 365 subscriptions.) They'll give you a boost whether you're using the desktop or web Office apps.
But first, we'll provide a quick tutorial on installing Office add-ins.
How to find and install Office add-ins
To install an add-in via the Office Ribbon: Open a document or start a new document. On the Ribbon toolbar above the document, click the Insert tab and then click the Get Add-ins button. (In the Office web apps, the button is called simply Add-ins. In the desktop apps, you may need to click Insert Add-ins Get add-ins. In Outlook, you click the Home tab to access the Get Add-ins button at the end of the toolbar.)
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Jan 27, 2023
Need to make a quiz, survey, registration form, order form, or other web page that gathers feedback from co-workers, customers, or others? You can design and deploy one right from your web browser with Google Forms. It's integrated with Google Drive to store your forms in the cloud.
Anyone with a Google account can use Forms for free. It's also part of Google Workspace, Google's subscription-based collection of online office apps for business and enterprise customers that includes Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail, and more. Forms is lesser known than these other productivity apps, but it's a useful tool to know how to use. This guide takes you through designing a form, deploying it online, and viewing the responses it gathers.
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Jan 25, 2023
Atlassian has announced new automation capabilities for its Confluence collaborative workspace platform, allowing customers to set up rules that streamline processes and remove the need for repetitive manual work.
Automation is something that Atlassian has been investing in for a while and that has now become a core part of its platform, said Erika Trautman, head of product for work management at Atlassian. The company first rolled out new automation capabilities to its Jira platform in 2020, and Trautman said it will not stop with Confluence: it plans to launch additional automation functionality in other products in future.
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Jan 18, 2023
Software and IT services will drive worldwide IT spending to $4.5 trillion in 2023, an increase of 2.4% above 2022, according to the latest forecast by market research firm Gartner. That's down from last quarter's estimate of 5.1% growth, mainly due to a slower-than-expected rebound for hardware sales.
Enterprise spending on software and IT services is projected to increase 9.3% and 5.5% in 2023, respectively. However, continuing a trend from previous forecasts, spending on hardware devices is expected to decline 5.1% this year as both consumers and enterprises lengthen device refresh cycles.
Otherwise, enterprise spending on data-center systems and communications services is forecast to rise modestly, by 0.7% and 0.1%, respectively.
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Jan 13, 2023
Accessibility in our age of mobile technology is a pretty inspiring thing.
I mean, think about it: These powerful little computers we carry around in our purses and pantaloon pockets have the potential to open up all sorts of futuristic possibilities. Their effects can be downright life-changing for folks with issues like impaired hearing or limited vision — and in the grand scheme of things, those sorts of advancements are far more meaningful than any random phone feature we use to organize our lives or save ourselves a few seconds here and there.
Here's the cool part, though: Those two areas don't have to be mutually exclusive. Some of Android's most interesting accessibility options are poised to both help those who truly need 'em and be handy in a way that can benefit anyone. They work for accessibility, sure, but they're also valuable for far more mundane productivity gains.
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Jan 12, 2023
Amid a recent spate of high-profile layoffs and a recognition many companies rushed to hire to fill pandemic-driven business needs, organizations are now refocusing on quality of hiring — and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to aid in those efforts.
From 35% to 45% of companies are expected to use AI-based talent acquisition software and services to help select and interview job prospects in the coming year, according to two recent studies.
Nearly three in four organizations boosted their purchases of talent acquisition technology in 2022 and 70% plan to continue investing this year — even if a recession arrives — according to a survey by online job recruitment service Modern Hire.
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Jan 04, 2023
In a renewed effort to challenge search giant Google, Microsoft is planning to integrate the AI engine behind the popular ChatGPT3 chatbot from OpenAI into its Bing search engine, according to reports from The Information and Bloomberg.
Microsoft is betting on the rising popularity of ChatGPT3, as it showcases a new way to search the internet and responding to queries using conversational language — different from what Google offers currently in the way of links, Bloomberg cited a company source as saying.
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Jan 04, 2023
In a renewed effort to challenge search giant Google, Microsoft is planning to integrate the AI engine behind the popular ChatGPT3 chatbot from OpenAI into its Bing search engine, according to reports from The Information and Bloomberg.
Microsoft is betting on the rising popularity of ChatGPT3, as it showcases a new way to search the internet and responding to queries using conversational language — different from what Google offers currently in the way of links, Bloomberg cited a company source as saying.
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Dec 08, 2022
Salesforce is offering new Slack and Sales Cloud integration capabilities, designed to help sales teams drive productivity and efficiency while providing cost savings.
The new offerings, announced at the Salesforce World Tour NYC event on Thursday, comprise a productivity bundle that is on offer to customers at a discounted rate until mid-January, and a new native Slack integration with the company's Sales Cloud.
Speaking ahead of the event, Blake Markham, vice president of product management at Slack, said that in these times of economic uncertainty, companies are dealing with hiring freezes, and for sales teams, the customers they're selling to are experiencing similar challenges.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Dec 08, 2022
Atlassian Thursday unveiled a slew of new features for Jira Service Management—its IT service management (ITSM) offering—providing support and development teams with new automation capabilities, virtual agent technology and on-the-go incident response.
Speaking ahead of the company's annual High-Velocity ITSM event in London on December 8, Jira Service Management product manager Shihab Hamid said that Atlassian—which has acquired six companies in the last four years to "beef up" its product portfolio—was looking to bridge gaps among devops, IT operations, tech support and business teams.
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Dec 01, 2022
As digital technologies have transformed the way people create, move, and store their data over the decades, managing the multitude of physical documents and digital data produced by a company has remained an ongoing challenge for businesses. Technologies such as cloud-based apps and services, along with regulatory requirements around the storage and protection of customer data, have required companies to explore technology solutions for document and data management.
In earlier days, this meant investing in a document management system (DMS), which helped companies digitally store and manage paper-based and online documents. The rise of web-based technologies created content management systems (CMSes), which managed digitally created content, but also included formats such as audio, video, images, and HTML-based files.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Nov 30, 2022
Four years after IBM and Maersk first unveiled TradeLens, the companies have announced they will be withdrawing TradeLens offerings and will discontinue the blockchain-based supply chain platform.
The platform will go offline by the end of the first quarter in 2023. Apparently the platform did not attract enough users to be commercially viable.
"The need for full global industry collaboration has not been achieved," said Rotem Hershko, head of business platforms at A.P. Moller - Maersk, in a statement posted on Maersk's website. "TradeLens has not reached the level of commercial viability necessary to continue work and meet the financial expectations as an independent business."
To read this article in full, please click here
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Nov 30, 2022
Four years after IBM and Maersk first unveiled TradeLens, the companies have announced they will be withdrawing TradeLens offerings and will discontinue the blockchain-based supply chain platform.
The platform will go offline by the end of the first quarter in 2023. Apparently the platform did not attract enough users to be commercially viable.
"The need for full global industry collaboration has not been achieved," said Rotem Hershko, head of business platforms at A.P. Moller - Maersk, in a statement posted on Maersk's website. "TradeLens has not reached the level of commercial viability necessary to continue work and meet the financial expectations as an independent business."
To read this article in full, please click here
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Nov 17, 2022
Automation in the workplace is nothing new — organizations have used it for centuries, points out Rajendra Prasad, global automation lead at Accenture and co-author of The Automation Advantage. In recent decades, companies have flocked to robotic process automation (RPA) as a way to streamline operations, reduce errors, and save money by automating routine business tasks.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Oct 18, 2022
The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (BNY Mellon) has gone live with an electronic platform that stores and protects cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and ether.
The 238-year-old bank's new Digital Asset Custody platform currently allows its US clients to store and transfer blockchain-based cryptocurrency with the same assurances the bank offers to protect traditional assets.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Oct 12, 2022
Microsoft has launched Microsoft Syntex, a rebranding of the application as the company transforms it into a set of content apps, low-code tools and services that uses AI to streamline how organizations work with content.
Part of a new category of technology that Microsoft calls "content AI," Microsoft Syntex—announced at the company's Ignite conference Wednesday, and formerly called SharePoint Syntex—uses AI to automatically read, tag and index large volumes of content, connecting it where it's needed in context and integrating offerings from across the Microsoft Cloud, from Microsoft 365 (the newly rebranded Office 365) and Azure to Power Platform and Microsoft Purview.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Oct 03, 2022
If your organization uses Office, chances are you've encountered Microsoft Teams, at least for video meetings. But it's capable of a lot more, providing an effective way for groups of people to collaborate on work and advance business objectives.
Teams is, at its core, group chat software with videoconferencing capabilities and some interesting features around working with documents and spreadsheets, especially those stored in SharePoint and OneDrive for Business. It's included with Microsoft 365/Office 365 business and enterprise subscriptions, making it attractive to Microsoft customers who don't want to pay for additional chat or meeting software.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 27, 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically changed the way people work, as working from home became the rule rather than the exception. Moving forward, many companies are continuing to support 100% remote workforces, or they're adopting a hybrid work model, with some employees working in the corporate office, some working at home, and many splitting their time between the two.
These remote and hybrid workers rely on company-provided technology to communicate with managers, co-workers, and customers. Savvy organizations want to provide every worker with a good digital employee experience (DEX) — the perception that employees have about the technology they interact with for work. To do that, companies need total visibility into how their employees are experiencing the technology they depend on to do their jobs.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 15, 2022
The scope of workplace collaboration tools available to teams today stretches far beyond anything employees might have imagined two and a half years ago. When work-from-home orders swept the globe in early 2020, most organizations were focused on ensuring they had viable video and chat platforms in place. Now, as a significant proportion of employees have decided to work outside of the office for at least part of the work week, tools that do more than just support workers' basic communication needs are becoming more sought after.
One product that has seen an explosion in growth this year has been the digital whiteboard. Also known as visual collaboration platforms or shared canvas apps, these tools let hybrid teams collaborate visually via an online interface.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 07, 2022
Slack has announced a new contact lifecycle management (CLM) integration with e-signature platform DocuSign, allowing users to navigate the full agreement processes inside their Slack workspace.
Although users already had the ability to send, sign and collaborate on agreements with DocuSign eSignature for Slack, much of the process still required the need for access to multiple, disparate systems, for internal and external stakeholders alike.
The new DocuSign CLM for Slack app instead allows colleagues and customers to navigate the full agreement process, including redlining, reviewing and approving, directly within Slack. This removes the need for signatories to check their emails or switch to different systems in order to receive status updates.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Sep 01, 2022
With a tech talent gap that's expected to worsen in the next few years, organizations and business users are increasingly looking to low-code and no-code app development to fill digital transformation needs.
In fact, for many business users, knowing how to use low-code and no-code to build apps is becoming more of the rule than the exception. (The difference between no-code and low-code is that the latter enables some customization because developers have access to command-line coding; no-code depends on visual tools such as pull-down menus and drag-and drop building blocks.)
To read this article in full, please click here
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Aug 30, 2022
Need to build a slide presentation for a meeting, training, or other event? Google Slides is an easy-to-use web app that comes with the essential tools and more. It stores your presentations in the cloud with Google Drive. Anyone with a Google account can use Slides and Drive for free, and they're also included with a Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) subscription for business and enterprise customers. There are Google Sheets mobile apps for Android and iOS, too.
This guide will help you become familiar with the Google Slides web interface and show you how to start a new presentation, upload a Microsoft PowerPoint file to edit in Google Slides, collaborate with others on your presentation, and finally, present it to others.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Aug 26, 2022
I love it when organizations try and do something good, but don't think things through and end up delivering unintended negative consequences.
Today's case in point: the US Senate and the Federal Reserve, both of whom are looking to reduce high interchange costs, but are unintentionally increasing costs for merchants and sharply boosting the undiscovered fraud rate. Not bad for government work.
Let's start with the Senate, where Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) have crafted The Credit Card Competition Act of 2022. Its stated goal: reduce the interchange fee that financial institutions and card brands (Visa, MasterCard, Amex, etc.) charge retailers.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Aug 15, 2022
Graphics software provider Canva has announced the launch of Canva Whiteboards, enabling users to workshop, brainstorm and collaborate with colleagues directly inside the Canva platform.
Customers who want to use the new whiteboarding tool need to first open a new Canva Presentation, right-click on a slide, and click "expand to whiteboard." They can then add and react to ideas with the new Whiteboards panel by using stickies, voting graphics, shapes and lines. Users will also have access to Canva's library of 100 million images, videos, audio tracks, which can be added onto a whiteboard.
If a planning session is time sensitive, Canva's new synced timer feature will show users how long the session has been going on. Special alerts let teams know when they have 10 seconds left in a session, and when the time's up.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Aug 12, 2022
Google's ChromeOS platform sure has come a long way.
From the early days, when ChromeOS was little more than an experimental "browser in a box," to today — with the platform powering first-class hardware and supporting a diverse range of productivity applications — Google's once-crazy-seeming project has turned into one of the world's most intriguing and rapidly expanding technological forces.
I've been covering ChromeOS closely since the start. I lived with the first Chromebook prototype, the Cr-48, and have used Chromebooks as part of my own personal computing setup in varying capacities ever since. I write about the field not only as someone who's studied it professionally from day 1 but also as someone who has used it personally that entire time, up through today.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Aug 03, 2022
Cloud-based work management platform Monday.com is branching out into customer relationship management (CRM) software, with the launch of a fully-customizable Monday Sales CRM.
The launch is the first of five job-specific products to be launched by the software company. Together, they will aim to better support teams working across sales, marketing, software development, and project management.
The new CRM platform has been built on Monday's customizable no-code framework, Work OS, and allows users to manage their sales cycle and unify all customer processes on a single platform.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Aug 01, 2022
As organizations navigate the changes that have come to characterize the workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic — including record-breaking numbers of employees leaving their jobs in the Great Resignation — many realize that they are more vulnerable than ever to facing a depleted workforce.
To address this challenge, a growing number of enterprises are deploying digital employee experience (DEX) tools and services to support a modern workforce. Some see DEX as a key to improving workers' satisfaction and therefore retaining them at a time when many are considering job and career changes.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Jul 26, 2022
This wacky ol' World Wide Web of ours has plenty of good things going for it, but customization isn't exactly its core strength.
For the most part, the web is what it is — a take-it-or-leave-it sort of affair. And especially when your business leans on lots of browser-based tools and services, as so many companies do these days, that can really limit how useful and efficient of an experience you and your teammates can have.
That's precisely the problem a startup called PixieBrix set out to solve. PixieBrix lets you take total control of the web and make it work any way you want. That means you can simplify common website interfaces to eliminate distractions and optimize your environment, for one — but even more powerfully, it means you can add elements into websites and turn any standard site into your own custom, company-specific workspace.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Jul 19, 2022
Governments across the globe are exploring or already piloting digital forms of national currencies, which have the potential to enable faster, less expensive retail and corporate transactions — and more secure money transfers.
Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) can also bolster financial inclusion because customers don't have to have a bank account to hold them; they can instead use encrypted "digital wallets" that exist in the cloud, on a desktop or laptop, or even on USB storage device.
In March, US President Joe Biden issued an executive order calling for more research on developing a national digital currency through the Federal Reserve Bank, or "The Fed." The order highlighted the need for more regulatory oversight of cryptocurrencies, which have been used for nefarious activities such as money laundering. The Fed has been investigating the creation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for years.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Jul 12, 2022
Word has always been the workhorse app of the Microsoft Office suite. Nearly everyone who uses Office ends up using Word at some point, whether it be for writing memos, typing up agendas, creating reports, crafting business correspondence or any of a thousand other uses.
Microsoft sells Office under two models: Individuals and businesses can pay for the software license up front and own it forever (what the company calls the "perpetual" version of the suite), or they can purchase a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription, which means they have access to the software for only as long as they keep paying the subscription fee.
When you purchase a perpetual version of the suite — say, Office 2019 or Office 2021 — its applications will never get new features, whereas apps in the "365" subscriptions are continually updated with new features. For more details, see our comparison of the two Office models.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Jul 12, 2022
This download accompanies our Word for Microsoft 365 cheat sheet. See that article for detailed information on how to get the most out of Word for Microsoft 365/Office 365 in Windows.To read this article in full, please click here
(Insider Story)
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Jun 17, 2022
Google Calendar is a core part of the Android productivity package — but if all you're using is what you see on the app's surface, you're missing out on some pretty powerful possibilities.
Yes, oh yes: Just like so many of our modern digital tools, there's more to Google Calendar than meets the eye. And while the majority of the service's advanced options revolve around the Calendar website, the Calendar Android app has its share of handy out-of-sight options that are specific to the mobile experience. From time-saving shortcuts to efficiency-boosting options, they're all things that have the potential to make your life easier in small but significant ways.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Jun 16, 2022
Microsoft has announced the launch of Viva Sales, a new sales tool that marks the first job-specific module of the company's Viva Insights recommendation tool.
Launched last year, Viva Insights surfaces personalized news, analytics, and knowledge for employees. Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for modern work at Microsoft, said that until now, every module available in Viva has been broadly applicable to every employee in the company. "Viva Sales is the first module that takes a different dimensional tack. It is focused on helping people, specifically salespeople, to get their job done."
To read this article in full, please click here
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Jun 16, 2022
Apple introduced "Sign in with Apple" a couple of years ago. Like similar options from Facebook and Google, the feature allows users to sign into apps and websites using their Apple ID rather than creating a unique account for each app or site.
Unlike other options, however, Apple allows users to choose whether their email address and related information is shared with each app/site. If a user chooses not to share this information, Apple will create a separate unique address to present to the app/site and will forward any mail to the user's actual email address.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Jun 01, 2022
When you choose a productivity platform like Microsoft 365/Office 365 or Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), the main focus is on the platform's functionality: Does it do the job you need?To read this article in full, please click here
(Insider Story)
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May 24, 2022
Adobe is bringing broader integration of its document management, tracking and validation services into Microsoft's product ecosystem, including tighter connections to Teams and the Purview information protection framework.
At Microsoft's annual Build software conference, Adobe announced a new single sign-on option for Acrobat for Teams, integration with Purview from directly within the desktop version of Acrobat, and Microsoft Power Automation functionality that will allow users to make repetitive tasks with Acrobat Sign easier, among other features.
Adobe also announced unified installation technology for all of the newly released features, meaning that IT staff can deploy them across their organizations with relative simplicity, as well as the achievement of FedRAMP Moderate (a government security standard) certification and Sign Graph connectivity, meaning that checking on signature status for things like sales contracts and onboarding is now faster.
To read this article in full, please click here
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May 06, 2022
So many employers don't yet see that modern employee experiences demand autonomy and flexibility more than they need presence. It's no surprise that since the pandemic struck, technologists have been busily attempting to build collaborative tools to support the distributed hybrid future of work.
Here's a look at some of the virtual collaboration tools available to companies.
Why these tools are important
Every survey suggests workers are more willing to find a new job than return to the bad old days of presence-based micro-management. Arguments that returning to the workplace boost collaboration may have some weight, but much of this relies on old-fashioned email and virtual meetings held from the office, rather than the home.
To read this article in full, please click here
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May 03, 2022
The past two years have seen mobility management take on a greater importance than ever in the enterprise. As remote and hybrid work models take hold at many organizations, "mobility management" has expanded its meaning from management of mobile devices to management of all devices used by mobile employees, wherever they happen to be working from.
Unified endpoint management (UEM) has become a strategic technology at the center of companies' efforts to control this increasingly complex environment. Essentially combining enterprise mobility management (EMM) tools with PC management tools, UEM platforms help companies manage and protect a range of devices including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers across multiple operating systems — all from a unified interface.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Apr 28, 2022
The CRM giant is looking to help customers automate workflows and trigger actions across its growing range of applications using Flow.
Flow Actions for Tableau
Finally, Flow Actions will allow Tableau users to launch a new workflow or trigger actions direct from a dashboard when new data is added or a certain threshold is reached.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Apr 28, 2022
I was surprised at how well it worked. And while it felt a little like the experience we had in the early days of low-res video chats online, somehow the shared intention of the space helped me keep focus.
I'm talking about Flow Club.
What is Flow Club?
People with an interest in office real estate rental have worked hard to convince us that the workplace requires random collaboration at office water coolers. But, what if it doesn't?
To read this article in full, please click here
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Apr 27, 2022
What if your business tools could help you get things done without getting in the way? That's a question many tech executives ask these days. I spoke with one of them, Boomerang Co-founder and CEO Aye Moah, to get her perspective.
We know the world of work has undergone deep transformation in the last few years. Existing change trends accelerated with COVID-19, which sent people home and also set workers scurrying to identify tech solutions to help them work smarter and better. Boomerang makes some of these.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Apr 26, 2022
There are thousands of software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps on the market, all competing to be number one in a particular category. Consequently, organizations often have a difficult time selecting the right SaaS apps for their specific needs — and they make mistakes that can cost them time and money.To read this article in full, please click here
(Insider Story)
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Apr 25, 2022
Over the past month, various world governments have stepped up efforts to create their own national digital currencies. The efforts are in response to the growing popularity of private sector decentralized digital currencies, such as Bicoin, that exist without the backing of a central bank or commercial banks.
In recent weeks, US President Joe Biden has issued an executive order to investigate how to regulate cryptocurrencies and speed up research into creating a digital dollar that would be backed by the Federal Reserve Bank and essentially "minted" by the US Treasury. Lawmakers then offered up a bill that would allow the US Treasury to create a digital dollar. And soon after that, the UK ramped up its own efforts to regulate cryptocurrencies and create a non-fungible token backed by the Bank of England.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Apr 20, 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic did not just disrupt physical meetings and physical office spaces; workflows that relied on in-person interaction, such as signing documents and contracts, were also highly impacted. Electronic signature (e-signature) software has surged in popularity over the past two years as enterprises looked to modify their signature workflows to support a remote workforce, said Holly Muscolino, group vice president for content strategies and future of work at IDC.
With many companies returning to an in-person office environment or adopting a hybrid workforce approach, where employees work some days in the office and some at home, e-signature vendors are working to convince businesses that they are still relevant. Although the market has slowed down, Muscolino said, "it's still showing healthy growth, because there are still companies who have not adopted this technology. There is still significant room for adoption."
To read this article in full, please click here
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Apr 14, 2022
As the amount of data organizations create continues to mushroom, they're all dealing with the same challenge: how to enable their employees to find the answers they need to do their jobs when the information is hidden in different sources, including email servers, databases, network drives, cloud drives, and countless SaaS apps. When workers can't find the information they need to stay productive, the effectiveness of the entire business suffers.
What organizations need are tools that allow workers to search for information across multiple sources inside the enterprise. Enterprise search software does just that, offering a single application that provides total access to all enterprise content — from HR policies and help desk documents to marketing materials and ongoing project discussions — no matter where it resides.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Apr 07, 2022
Following efforts by the US and others to address cryptocurrency standards, UK officials this week said they want Britain to lead the world and create their own government-backed digital token for international trade.
"We want this country to be a global hub — the very best place in the world to start and scale crypto-companies," said John Glen, MP and UK Economic Secretary to the Treasury.
Glen's comments came during a keynote speech at the Innovate Finance Global Summit during Fintech Week 2022. He also asserted the UK is the leading European financial technology (Fintech) hub, "second only to the US worldwide."
To read this article in full, please click here
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Apr 01, 2022
Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscribers get more frequent software updates than those who have purchased Office without a subscription, which means subscribers have access to the latest features, security patches, and bug fixes. But it can be hard to keep track of the changes in each update and know when they're available. We're doing this for you, so you don't have to.
Following are summaries of the updates to Office 365/Microsoft 365 for Windows, with the latest releases shown first. We'll add info about new updates as they're rolled out.
Note: This story covers updates released to regular Office 365/Microsoft 365 for Windows subscribers. If you're a member of Microsoft's Office Insider preview program or want to get a sneak peek at upcoming features, see the company's "Release notes for Office for Windows Desktop (Beta builds)" page.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Mar 31, 2022
Most artificial intelligence (AI) efforts fail. They don't fail because of the tool, the core software, or bad data. They fail because they don't integrate with business and wind up being more of a hindrance than a help.
This isn't just an AI problem; it's true of most forms of automation. Projects fail because the people building the solution have no clue about the actual goal, the nature and dependencies of their current operations, or even whether those operations are optimized. (In some ways that last one suggests an AI failure might be more beneficial - if you have a bad process in place, the last thing you want to do is speed it up!)
To achieve success, you first need to fix the process or operation, fully define it, set forth a set of achievable goals for the AI project and staff, and then execute on it. That's why I'm fascinated by BCG, a consultancy that is increasingly focused on AI; its tactics evolved out of efforts to help companies improve operations with a strategic goal in mind.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Mar 22, 2022
Each time we experience an Apple iCloud, Spotify, Slack, Verizon, Google, Peloton, or any other form of server-based outage, we're reminded that everyone should have multiple layers of backup to maintain data and work to ensure key services still work when servers go down.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Mar 22, 2022
Google Sheets is a powerful spreadsheet app that you use through your web browser. It stores your spreadsheets in the cloud with Google Drive. Anyone with a Google account can use Sheets and Drive for free. Both are also part of Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), Google's subscription office suite for business and enterprise customers.
This guide will teach you how to start a new spreadsheet in Sheets or upload one you already have stored on your PC, including a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. It also goes over the basic interface and unique features of Sheets, such as how to share your spreadsheets and collaborate on them with others.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Mar 16, 2022
Slack is updating its iPad app, with a refreshed layout which more closely resembles its desktop experience.
The updates to the iPad app include a refreshed sidebar that keeps channels organized and easy to navigate. Sections are now collapsible, allowing users to hide groups of channels and focus on just the most relevant conversations, while section preferences can be synced with the desktop version, keeping the sidebar consistent when users switch between devices.
Usernames in direct messages now feature avatars, making them easier to scan, and channel activity can now be sorted by recency, so team updates can be reviewed more quickly.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Mar 10, 2022
Global mergers and acquisitions (M&As) last year surpassed pre-pandemic levels and nearly matched the previous record years of 2007 and 2015, according to professional services firm KPMG. This year, they're poised to climb higher.
A KPMG survey of more than 350 US business indicated that mergers are on the rise because of easy access to capital, low interest rates, and a recovering global economy.
KPMG
The number of global mergers and acquisitions could climb higher this year than in 2021.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Mar 07, 2022
US and European sanctions over the past week and a half have put the screws to the Russian government and its oligarchs who are likely using alternative methods to ferry their cash across borders.
"We do believe it is very likely that Russian companies and nationals are trying to use crypto assets like Bitcoin or the US Dollar-pegged stablecoin, such as Tether (USDT), to circumvent the economic sanctions," said Josh Olszewicz, head of research at Valkyrie Funds, a digital asset investment manager.
Stablecoins are tied to fiat or cash-backed by central banks, while Bitcoin and other non-stablecoin digital currencies derives value from supply and demand and otherwise have no intrinsic value. Non-fungible tokens or NFTs are digital tokens tied to assets other than cash, but those "assets" can also be as valuable as art and real estate or as meaningless as a random photograph or stuffed animal.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Mar 03, 2022
In the wake of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, SAP and Oracle have both announced that they are suspending all business operations in Russia.
The decision from the two major IT vendors came in the wake of a request from Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who posted letters he'd written to both companies on Twitter yesterday.
In his letter to Oracle, Fedorov wrote: "The IT industry always supports values of responsibility and democracy…now, more than ever, people's lives depend on your choice."
Oracle replied to the tweet, stating that on behalf of the people of Ukraine and its elected government, the company has "suspended all operations in the Russian Federation". However, the company has not provided any further comment on the situation since the tweet was posted.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Mar 02, 2022
Salesforce exceeded all expectations with its fourth quarter 2022 financial results on Tuesday, boasting that its recent acquisition of enterprise messaging platform Slack can help the CRM giant reach $32 billion in revenue next year.
Since its $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack in 2020, Salesforce has continued to benefit financially from the ongoing popularity of the messaging platform. This is a trend that looks set to continue, as organizations across the globe continue to have conversations about facilitating hybrid and remote work models.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Feb 24, 2022
Volvo has unleashed a big improvement in customer satisfaction after equipping its 1,500 service engineers with an Apple Watch to use during their day. What, on the face of it, seems a small change reflects extensive cultural change across the company, which is actively engaged in digital transformation across its business.
What can an Apple Watch do for car servicing?
Volvo has equipped its engineers (Personal Service Technicians) with an Apple Watch and iPhone (running the Volvo Service app) to help them work more efficiently than before. The company's primary focus is to improve customer service, as it recognizes that technicians are the main point of customer contact across the life of the Volvo they drive.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Feb 23, 2022
Chat-based collaboration software is a must-have in today's business environment, with Slack and Microsoft Teams the two leading options for the enterprise. The stakes couldn't be higher — the pandemic made clear that remote work and collaboration are the future of business.
Slack, which went public back in 2019, was bought by enterprise software giant Salesforce in July 2021 for $27.7 billion. Until the acquisition, it wasn't clear that Slack could survive against behemoth Microsoft, which has a gazillion revenue streams to rely upon and is giving Teams away for free in most Office 365 and Microsoft 365 plans. But now that Slack has sugar daddy Salesforce behind it, with a valuation north of $200 billion and annual income of more than $20 billion, it can better compete.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Feb 07, 2022
AI, automation and big data analytics are key themes for Belgian fintech, as innovative companies look to solve common problems in the financial services sector.
Fintech is, broadly, technology that is applied to financial services or the management of transaction operations within businesses. Cloud-based applications that cut costs, streamline work-flow, and visualise data for users are in high demand, says Dave Remue, head of fintech at KPMG Belgium.
To read this article in full, please click here
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Jan 24, 2022
Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) are apparently eager to invest in technology to help attract — and keep — finance talent and workers with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning (ML) skills, according to a new survey.
Financial services and human resources software vendor Workday last week released its latest Global CFO Indicator Survey, which indicates that nearly half (48%) of CFOs plan to invest in consumer-like interfaces to attract future finance talent within the next five years — and 57% say they now want AI and ML skills in new hires.
To read this article in full, please click here
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