BYOD isn’t just about using a tablet in meetings or having email access on your phone while waiting at the doctor’s office.  BYOD is about a mobility experience that exceeds expectations and allows employees to do their jobs no matter where they are or what time of the day it is.  This makes BYOD amazing news to employees; however, BYOD can be a hassle for CIOs when it comes to security and support.

Cisco and MobleIron report that 78% of US white-collar employees use a mobile device for work purposes. Also, 60% of enterprise knowledge workers use a mobile device as their primary computing device. Smartphone adoption is growing at more than 50% annually which means there will be 1.2 billion smartphones that enter the market over the next five years.

All of this rapid growth in BYOD can give IT professionals a reason to worry as they consider security. Logicalis has found the BYOD concerns that worry IT professionals most:

• Providing both a choice of devices and support for each device
• Maintaining secure access across the corporate network
• The time it takes to bring new devices on board
• The creation and enforcement of company usage polices
• Data protection and loss prevention management
• Wireless LAN performance and reliability
• Their ability to revoke access
• Access to the tools needed to gain visibility into and control over devices on the network
• Feeling overwhelmed with trying to manage the increase in connected devices

Are these real concerns that we must confront immediately? Or do you believe these concerns are just hype? Tell us why in the comments.

While hospitals are steadily adopting and implementing health IT (HIT), individual physicians and smaller providers are taking longer to adopt all the technologies required to meet “meaningful use” standards — for the most part because of cost, training time and the effort needed to move from paper to electronic systems. These providers are not only missing out on the HITECH incentives today, but if they don’t adopt by 2015, they will face penalties in the form of decreased Medicare reimbursements.

Long term it’s a no-brainer: HIT does lead to reduced care costs and improved patient care.

Here’s some good advice on how to accelerate your organization’s pace.  Anita Karcz, MD, Chief Medical Officer at IHM Services Company, has come up with 6 ways to adopt meaningful use:

1. Don’t ignore the human side: It is important to keep the people who will be using it in mind when implementing a new system. Using a long-term communicative process that focuses on the end goal of employees adapting to the system is key.
2. Take a fresh approach: Use the new information available to better analyze and meet your patients’ needs.
3. Do it with data: Using the amount of new information available will also give the opportunity to improve care for a wider range of patients.
4. Recognize the importance of education: Educating the organization to the system is important. A good way to do this is to educate a pilot group first, and then use the feedback that you get to educate the rest of the organization.
5. Remember the roles: With all of the information your system will be holding about patients it is important to remember the roles of employees and patients when giving patient information out, and the benefits of educating the patients while revealing information.
6. Minimize risk, maximize benefit: It is important to bring the organization up to speed with health IT. It not only benefits the organization, but the patients also benefit.

Do you believe that HITECH and other regulatory requirements to move to electronic systems are key to moving us to a future healthcare system that is lower in costs and delivers better quality care?  Or is HIT only hype? Let us know your additional thoughts about HIT in the comments below.

Other studies have also shown that organizations that are moving capabilities to the cloud are recognizing cost savings and increased profits. In fact, a recent Rackspace survey of 1,300 companies in the U.K. and U.S. showed that up to 88% of cloud users have seen cost savings and 56% have boosted profits by using the cloud.

The cloud has helped to make these organizations more innovative and strategic, said 60% of respondents, by allowing the IT team to have more time. Organizations said being innovative (32%) along with increased efficiency (55%) and improved employee mobility (49%) were the top benefits their organization saw from using the cloud. And 62% of companies that have saved money by using the cloud plan to invest that money back into the organization to become more innovative.

Has your organization saved time and money by using the cloud? If so would you agree that this is ripe? Or do you disagree that the cloud can save time and money, making this article hype?

While IT professionals shouldn’t overact to employees using the rogue cloud, they still need to search for ways to keep their information secure. Here are 4 ways that CIO.com listed to manage rogue cloud computing in order to keep your data secure and keep a positive outlook:

1. Recognize the expansion of rogue cloud
2. Innovate approaches that help the business manage the risk
3. Recognize the benefits users are getting from it
4. Find ways to securely deliver those benefits to the organization at large

Do you agree that IT needs to recognize the benefits of the rogue cloud, and this is ripe? Or is this information just hype?

In 2012 the use of cloud computing increased 12%, reaching 13 billion according to Infonetics Research. Cloud computing continues to grow larger, reaching more companies, and as a result more and more companies are concerned with the security of data stored in the cloud. Therefore Infonetics Research also expects that over the next five years cloud-based security services will grow at a rate of 69%.  The growth of cloud-based security services is directly connected with cloud market growth, therefore companies want to be sure that their data is secure in the cloud, consequently being more likely to use cloud security services such as Security-as-a-Service, BYOD, Data Control, Enforcing Security Policies, and other similar services.

Do you agree this is ripe and cloud use and cloud-based security will continue to grow over the next few years? Or is this hype and they won’t continue to grow?

A large number of CIOs have identified a “don’t fix it unless it’s broken” approach to storage, and this can be a major problem for an IT department. It is very difficult to move forward while your IT is living in the past. Since storage is the heart of IT, relying on storage solutions with a basic architecture that was created two decades ago won’t work well with the advanced data archival and retrieving capabilities demanded of companies today.

This brings companies to a fork in the road. They want to have an effective storing center, but most companies’ budgets haven’t gone up, making this difficult to obtain. Therefore most companies are trying to figure out if it will be more costly to maintain the status quo or to pursue new storage innovations.

Logicalis believes that it will be more costly to maintain the status quo. It will become increasingly important to CIOs as they will have more advanced delivery of technical services to deal with. With this in mind here are 3 reasons why CIOs are embracing storage innovations:

1. Seamless delivery of IT
2. More value from information
3. Reduction in risk exposure

Do you agree that it is more costly to maintain the status quo making this ripe? Or is it hype and it isn’t more costly to maintain the status quo?

Companies are seeing the profit of moving their infrastructures, products and services to the cloud. 56% of companies surveyed said that their profit from the cloud comes from saving money in other ways, and 22% claim the cloud has saved them money by increasing their company’s organizational agility.

Another way that companies have seen profit from the cloud is through cloud management and security. As organizations plan to move to the cloud they begin to look for third party service providers to perform cloud server management for them, and more companies are offering the services to handle cloud related issues, especially cloud management.

Cloud management service providers are important for managing a company’s cloud because they not only monitor the cloud services but also secure the environment. This helps to make the cloud server environment more secure, scalable and flexible. This can also help boost the cloud environment by optimizing existing resources and saving money in the long run.

Do you agree that a well-managed, secure cloud can save you money and this is ripe? Or do you believe this is only hype?

CIOs and IT departments have been feeling the pressures of the Technology Adoption Gap. This gap is found by the need to support new functionality while IT has been stripped of the ability to use the technology required to deliver. This gap has created a greater need for managed services because it can reduce the risk of deploying and supporting new and legacy solutions.

According to Gartner, enterprises only realize an average of 43% of technology business potential. Since they only realize a small amount of the industry CIOs are beginning to turn to solution venders for managed services. Along with not using the industry to its full potential, IT budgets are being tightened which adds to the stress of the Technology Adoption Gap.

The stress of the Technology Adoption Gap is leading CIOs and IT departments to look into managed services but it is important to choose the right partner for your company. The Avaya blog recommends that you ask these seven questions when looking for a managed-services partner:

1. Will the proposed service partner support your business strategy now and in the future?
2. Do you trust them to have the necessary expertise and bandwidth to provide maintenance, deliver support services or assume managed-services responsibilities?
3. Will they become trusted advisors that stay engaged and serve as an extension of your IT organization and business?
4. Do they provide a portfolio of offers that span the entire service continuum and have the necessary flexibility to ensure a smooth deployment of managed services?
5. What applications, diagnostics checks or analytics tools do they leverage to anticipate any problems or hidden issues?
6. Do they provide a single point of contact that can quickly swarm experts to resolve an issue in your network?
7. Do they really know you? Understand your solution?

Do you agree that these are good questions to ask when you are deciding on a managed-service provider, making them ripe? Or are these questions only hype and are not helpful when considering a managed service provider?

Technology mergers and acquisitions have become a major force moving companies to the cloud in recent years. However, technology mergers and acquisitions fell 35% from 2011 to 2012, which would seem to indicate a threat to the rise of the cloud. Most of the decrease in mergers and acquisitions activity was related to concerns about sluggish macroeconomic conditions and the fact that the average size of deals dropped from $218 million in 2011 to $188 million in 2012. Impressively, in spite of these declines the cloud market continued to grow.

In fact the cloud market grew to represent more than 15% of the global technology mergers and acquisitions deal volume.  There was also growth in many transformative megatrends such as social-mobile-cloud, big data analytics and accelerated adaptation. Research suggests that technology mergers and acquisitions will remain strong because both technology and non-technology industries will have to adapt to technology innovation.

Do you agree that the cloud market and other megatrends will continue to stay hot making this post ripe? Or do you believe that this is hype and the cloud market will soon cool off?

Every organization has to deal with BYOD, even if the way some decide to do it is by ignoring that it exists. Companies must decide if they are going to let BYOD run its course, or if they are going to make a plan of action to protect their data yet provide the outstanding experience their users want and expect on their mobile device.

With smartphones, tablets, and the cloud it is easier than ever for employees to hold corporate data in different places. This is good because it makes the information easily accessible to them wherever they are working. It is also a corporate risk as that data can land in the wrong hands should the employee lose their device.

Therefore Network World has come up with 5 “Best BYOD Deployment” tips:

1. Don’t do it with just cost in mind: Having a BYOD plan might not save your company money, but it will allow your employees to be more productive while keeping company information safe.
2. Communicate: The IT department needs to make the BYOD policy clear to all employees.
3. Are Invisible: If a BYOD plan interferes with the employees’ personal data or experience they are not going to be willing to use it.
4. Start small: It is easier to start with tight restrictions and loosen them later than it is to start with loose restrictions and try to tighten them later.
5. Respect Employee Privacy: This includes monitoring, access to data, and expectations for reasonable working hours.

Will these BYOD Deployment tips help your company with your BYOD plan and this is ripe? Or is this information hype and therefore not helpful?