Archives : June 2009

our recommendations to businesses vis a vis security issues in social media (2/2)

published on 2009/06/26 by Alban Ondrejeck

Following our previous post in which we were able to demonstrate how one could get into the private life of an individual thanks to the information the latter has provided about him/herself on various social networking platforms, this second instalment of our demonstration shows how a hacker can use this information as a starting point for a foray into the targeted person's company information system. 3 strategies have been exposed in this video. All 3 scenarios selected are straightforward in order to prove that everyone is potentially concerned. However, a myriad of other scenarios can be devised, all depending on hackers' skills and mainly their......

US broadband market picks up in Q1 2009

published on 2009/06/25 by Anthony Plewes

The latest world broadband statistics from Point Topic have just been published By the end of Q1 2009, there were 429.2 million broadband subscribers worldwide, an increase of 4% over the last quarter of 2008. This put global broadband household penetration at 27.3%, an increase of 17.7% over penetration in Q1 2008. This growth comes in spite of the economic slowdown which affected take-up worldwide in 2008. Growth in Europe and Japan was still slow at the start of 2009, but the survey shows that growth in the US picked up again in the past two quarters and it has seen the......

Good news: IT spending out of step with economic cycle

published on 2009/06/18 by Stewart Baines

When IDC forecast global IT spending earlier in the year would remain the black, it did not foretell the utter collapse of the IT industry. Instead it suggested that while demand will be down in all regions it would not be catastrophic. Seemed odd at the time - surely, IT spending would mirror the general economic trends and head south very quickly.Well according to venerable IDC chief analyst John Gantz, speaking at Orange Business Live in London, the IT spending cycle doesn't always follow economic cycles. With decades of experience, Gantz pointed out that that the current economic crisis is......

Good news: IT spending out of step with economic cycle

our recommendations to businesses vis a vis security issues in social media (1/2)

published on 2009/06/18 by Alban Ondrejeck

Needless to say how much we love social media at Orange Business Services and especially on the Orange Business Live blog. The likes of Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn and TWitter are instrumental in letting us express our opinions, ideas and even develop our skills online, not to mention the management of our online reputations via powerful, user-friendly tools and platforms Having said that, the blue-sky world of social networks is somewhat darkened by certain hard facts related to serious web 2.0 security issues. Private and business information is particularly at risk on certain social networking platforms - not because of the said platforms......

our recommendations to businesses vis a vis security issues in social media (1/2)

Green IT and cost savings align

published on 2009/06/16 by

While much of the talk here at Orange Business Live 09 has been about saving costs in a tough economic climate, Green IT is still bubbling under, with a certain amount of cross-over between the two meaning that is possible to be both green and cost-conscious. Topics drawing the most interest included server virtualisation, data centre energy efficiency, and video collaboration. Rising oil prices will affect the cost of power and air travel, which can be offset by the deployment of new technologies, and can in-turn bring productivity benefits -- looking like an all-round "win/win". Sonny Reid, Global Network Director for electrical......