Case Study - Staff Email

Brightsolid online technology specialises in the cloud delivery of business critical applications.  The Dundee based company currently host our staff email; delivering a secure, fully managed and hosted hybrid cloud environment.  Find out more here:

http://www.brightsolid.com/assets/images/PDFs/Case%20Study%20St%20Andrews%20Uni.pdf

 

 

Ofcom report on communications

In 2011 Ofcom produced their first report on the state of the UK communications infrastructure following a requirement to do so by the Digital Economy Act 2010. The report was updated in 2012. This is a very fast moving area with the 4G rollout, superfast broadband and a variety of new digital broadcast services only a few of the current programmes underway. For anyone with an interest in this area the report is well worth a read. I've a specific interest in the Scottish perspective as a resilient and fast communications infrastructure is vital in underpinning the sharing of services across organisations or to support different ways of working for University staff and students. A link to the report is provided below.

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/telecoms-research/bbspeeds2011/infrastructure-report.pdf

Office of the Future

In developing a strategy ive been looking further at what the Office of the Future might look like and in looking around it looks like there is significant change in workplace design and indeed a move towards no fixed office space.

There is a growing trend towards more "touch down" spaces which are becoming more common in all verticals.  Also there is a recognition that workplace design is crucial whether this be in a fixed, mobile or flexible approach.

Significantly to cater for the 1.3 billion mobile workers predicted by 2015 (IDC Group) several large hotel chains are introducing work spaces and its quite clear that hotels are no longer just places to sleep. For example Marriott have introduced “Workspace on demand”, Westin have introduced "Tangent" and Hilton also a similar solution. In all cases power provision is key along with decent WiFi along with flexible furnishings etc. Likewise in Higher Education there is a growth in flexible learning spaces.

With regards to fixed office space there is also some major changes in the way some organisations are approaching this.  From my research ive found that Office Space is the second largest cost for most companies and its generally only used one third of the time. Accenture is one organisation that has abandoned permanent offices in favour of a more mobile. Interestingly management consultants have predicted for a while the demise of office space however I think technology is only really caught up in the last year or so making this approach more workable. Although there have been many successful home working programmes true mobility is only really become possible as WiFi has become more ubiquitous and more devices small and personalised.

With the roll out of 4G and a move towards wireless network roaming the next 12 months will again provide more technological underpinning of mobile working placing very different demands on IT departments. The need for a changing model of service delivery has never been greater.

 

Enterprise Mobility Summit - 11th June 2013

I recently particpitated in a Panel Discussion at the Computing Enterprise Mobility event in London. The topic was - Enterprise of the future - what will the office of the future look like?

This is a question that is relevant to all industries and may even need the term "office" defined as it can mean different things to different people especially as the workforce continues to become more mobile and our personal and work lives merge.

 The Panel focussed on the following questions and the views were interesting!

• Which is the primary work device of the future - desktop, laptop, tablet, smartphone, ultrabook, hybrid or some combination of all of these?
• Will touch-screen functionality migrate to desktop and laptop platforms?
• How does a bespoke Enterprise App Store benefit businesses?
• Will a user-centric EMM strategy help to increase security and reduce costs?

In higher education I'm generally seeing a tablet device being used as a supplementary device to a fixed pc or laptop and the smartphone becoming the norm for students to own. At present touch screen technology is moving rapidly to become dominant on laptops however other than in the consumer market I'm not seeing this moving to the fixed desktop pc environment. 

There appears to be wide spread adoption of EMM across a range of industries primarily to manage an end user tablet or smartphone within the organisations specific policies. 

I'm watching this area with interest as ever as its moving at a pace which impacts on the supporting backend infrastructure. Likewise from a facilities perspective there is an increasing move towards demands for touchdown areas with power and flexible learning spaces rather than what has traditionally being provided.