David Deans

Online collaboration has evolved during the last decade, delivering even greater value -- thanks to a new generation of business technology applications. Forbes Insights released "Collaborating in the Cloud," a Cisco-sponsored study examining the ways business leaders increasingly look at cloud collaboration as a way to increase productivity, accelerate business results and enhance innovation across borders and functions. The research combines a global survey of more than 500 executives with 15 executive interviews. "The ability to collaborate in the cloud is becoming a key driver of competitive advantage," says Bruce Rogers, Chief Insights Officer of Forbes Media. "Leading companies are doing more to foster cloud-based collaboration -- not only internally, but also with an ever-wider swath of external groups including customers, suppliers, partners, and even regulato... (more)

New Cyber Threats within The Internet of Everything

Cisco released findings from two global studies that provide a vivid picture of the rising security challenges that businesses, IT departments and individuals face -- particularly as employees become more mobile, blending work and personal lifestyles throughout their waking hours. Despite popular assumptions that security risks increase as a person's online activity becomes shadier, findings from the Cisco 2013 Annual Security Report (ASR) reveal that the highest concentration of online security threats tend to target legitimate destinations visited by mass audiences -- such as maj... (more)

Big Data: Visualizing the Strategic Business Imperative

The term Big Data is going to become a key part of the forward-looking business technology debate among informed, proactive and ICT savvy executives. But what's really driving the growing demand for meaningful solutions? While most companies are collecting, storing and analyzing data, they continue to struggle with both the business and IT challenges of Big Data -- more data is not necessarily better. Enormous amounts of data are being generated daily by smartphones, sensors, video cameras, smart meters, and other connected devices, adding to the huge store of information from tr... (more)

Business Technology Trends to Watch in 2013

In 2013, IT buyers will be looking for increased stability and better ways to prepare for the next five years in their business cycle, according the the latest market study by Ovum. "The fact that we live in very uncertain times makes investment decision-making even more difficult. With continuing instability across the global markets and even in locations with historically robust growth -- such as China and India -- the outlook for IT services in 2013 is unpredictable," said Jens Butler, principal analyst, IT Services at Ovum. Ovum believes that business leaders will be looking ... (more)

Insight from 2013 Cisco Global IT Impact Survey Results

As businesses increase the number of new application rollouts and create new connected user experiences to better serve their customers, IT organizations face the challenge of expanding network services and aligning their network strategies to meet the requirements of the business. A global study announced today by Cisco revealed that while the majority (63 percent) of IT professionals are confident in their ability to respond to the needs of the business, almost a third (27 percent) still equated the visibility of their IT department into their company's business initiatives to ... (more)