[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Carvajal switches to Office 365 for faster business, reduced cost
Keep business information both accessible and safe—a challenge in any scenario, but especially difficult when you operate myriad business divisions in 15 countries. That’s what we face at Carvajal, where our divisions produce everything from office furniture and educational software to commercial printing and packaging. We also strive to make our large, diverse company operate as a cohesive organization. It can be tough to coordinate meetings and collaborate among 20,000 employees in so many different divisions dispersed throughout South and North America.
A few years ago, we decided to standardize our technology environment to make it easier to reach across geographic and divisional borders and unite our workforce. For example, we needed to consolidate all the different communications systems we’d been supporting and establish a more stable email infrastructure that would help us reduce hardware and administration costs. So we moved from our range of on-premises software to Google Apps.
But we soon found that employees had to take extra steps to accomplish their work. This was due to the lack of integration between our Google solutions and our Microsoft systems, particularly Microsoft Office, which employees depend on for daily productivity. For example, employees encountered issues when they tried to publish documents because their formatting didn’t stay consistent, and they struggled to find ways to collaborate efficiently. We knew we needed to make a change, and in 2015, we chose to migrate to Microsoft Office 365 and completed our migration successfully with help from Microsoft Services Premier Support.
Switching from Google Apps to Office 365 has been a savvy move for Carvajal. We saw right away how much easier it is now for employees everywhere to share information and work together using any device. We’re implementing workflow processes in Microsoft SharePoint Online and taking advantage of Office 365 Groups to help us streamline our operations even further. And it doesn’t matter whether employees are working from an office or hotel, a smartphone or a traditional computer—they stay productive no matter what. Plus, our employees are happy to be back using Microsoft Outlook, which is where they’re most comfortable working. The best part is that everything interoperates in a way that supports connected teamwork.
There are plenty of reasons why we’re pleased that we adopted Office 365, most of which relate to companywide collaboration and efficiency. We appreciate that now we’re able to extend the number of attendees on our video calls using Skype for Business, because greater employee input gives us the opportunity to make more informed decisions. We also plan to expand use of our Yammer corporate social network to make it simple for all our business divisions to share best practices, comment on projects and tap into the company’s full knowledge base for fast answers to problems.
Our IT staff members are as happy with Office 365 as their colleagues. For example, they spend far less time now on hardware and software administration, focusing instead on new projects that support the business. The company also benefits from having more secure data in an environment that complies with important international standards. That’s significant to us because we operate in so many industries in which it’s critical to adhere to regulations, and we count on Microsoft to help keep us protected and compliant.
We’re making it easier for employees to communicate with each other and collaborate on a huge array of projects. Ultimately, that helps us develop products quicker and be more responsive to our customers and their needs. That’s smart business.
Managed Solution is a full-service technology firm that empowers business by delivering, maintaining and forecasting the technologies they’ll need to stay competitive in their market place. Founded in 2002, the company quickly grew into a market leader and is recognized as one of the fastest growing IT Companies in Southern California.
We specialize in providing full Microsoft solutions to businesses of every size, industry, and need.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
Microsoft acquires Beam interactive game live streaming service
Microsoft has acquired Beam, a Seattle-based interactive game streaming service that lets viewers play along with streamers as they watch. Beam’s model takes the mostly passive interaction that streaming fans may be used to from services like Twitch and YouTube, and adds the ability for viewers to interact with the streamer via crowdsourced controls.
Players interacting through Beam can direct the play of the person streaming, doing things like setting which weapon loadout they take into battle for multiplayer shooters, for example. It launched at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2016, and won our Startup Battlefield competition. Visual controls provide viewers the ability to help players pick quests, and you can even assign challenges that alter the gameplay considerably from what you’d get via a typical play through.
Beam will join Microsoft’s Xbox team, and “remains committed to its mission of importing users and streamers across platforms” according to Microsoft.
Beam founder and CEO Matt Salsamendi told me via email that Xbox’s community focus is specifically what made them a good fit for the young company.
“I’m really excited about Xbox’s focus on community,” he wrote. “Beam is fundamentally built on a connected group of passionate individuals that love gaming, and Xbox is super in tune with that.”
In a blog post announcing the news, Salsamendi explained that no immediate changes are planned for the platform, but that the Microsoft acquisition will help Beam grow the platform and add new features and game integrations thanks to the addition support the larger company can provide.
“Right now it’s business as usual!” Salsamendi wrote regarding product plans. “We just launched three brand new interactive integrations and we’ll continue to focus on making the Beam platform an awesome place for gaming communities that want to interact with their audience.”
No terms of the deal were disclosed. The company launched on January 5 this year, with an official debut of its interactive tools at Disrupt in May. Salsamendi will lead the Beam team from Microsoft’s Redmond campus, where they’ll operate under the Xbox engineering department.
In addition to wining TechCrunch Disrupt, the Beam team had raised around $420,000 in seed funding, and participated in Techstars Seattle’s 2016 class.
For Microsoft, picking up Beam gives it a way to build an in-house streaming service, and one designed for participatory play. In its blog post announcing the deal, Microsoft highlights Minecraft as an example of how Beam’s software can promote more social play, and it’s actually a title tailor-made to the kinds of interactions Beam provides. If Microsoft can use the acquisition to drive more community engagement among the younger audience that devours Let’s Play videos, then this should turn out to be a very worthwhile partnership.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]
IoT security suffers from a lack of awareness
By Clint Boulton as written on cio.com
As consumers we have become obsessed with connected devices. We like the idea of smart homes, smart cars, smart TVs, smart refrigerators or any machine that can be automated with sensors and an IP address. Yet fewer tasks in IT today inspire more fear than the prospect of protecting corporate networks from this proliferating wave of connected devices. The internet of things phenomenon expands the threat surface exponentially, in turn boosting business risk.
But CIOs often aren’t aware of all of the devices that make inviting targets for hackers. "One of the fundamental issues that faces the internet of things is knowing that they're there and giving them some identity,” says Gartner analyst Earl Perkins. "You can't manage what you can't see."
Factor in the hiding-in-plain-sight machines and BYOD devices, as well as emerging technologies that control office light fixtures, temperature and even window tint, and it's easy to see how vetting what's on the network will only get harder for CIOs. Securing internet of things is a primary focus of this week’s Black Hat USA conference, whose organizers told the Wall Street Journal that they received 50 proposals for seminars related to infiltrating devices, including how a computer worm could spread smart lightbulbs, how to hack medical systems, and a new kind of ATM skimming device.
Matt Kraning, CTO of security software startup and DARPA spinoff Qadium, says CIOs are focusing on locking down devices operating on the network as a result of BYOD policies while the mundane teleconference systems are ignored. There are tens of thousands of such unified communications and collaboration systems installed in executive boardrooms around the world. These systems use dated protocols, such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), aren't encrypted and are rarely kept current on patches.
Imagine this scenario: The entire C-suite huddles with the board for their quarterly meeting. The IP-enabled video conferencing system doesn't work so they call IT in. Turns out the system was properly blocked by the corporate firewall, consistent with corporate policy. But rather than cancel the meeting, the execs order IT to break through the firewall to get the system to work. The big no-no occurs when the IT team doesn't put the firewall back around the equipment, leaving the system open to an enterprising hacker who may eavesdrop on executive meetings.
"They grew up when the phone was just a phone," Kraning says of executives who don't realize the threat that such systems pose. "Most have no insider awareness of IoT and that persists the myth that the problem is not already here." He says mail servers are also potential threat vectors.
IoT security: a victim of market economics?
The enterprise is naturally only a subset of the broader world – one in which the increasing drumbeat of connected devices poses an even greater threat. Gartner forecasts that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016 and will reach 20.8 billion by 2020. Protecting those devices, from smart cars to smart hot water heaters to smart TVs, remains a big problem partly because of a misalignment of economics, says security expert Bruce Schneier.
PCs and cell phones churn every 18 to 24 month so the companies that produce them have financial incentive to constantly refine the security of those devices. But people replace cars every 10 years, refrigerators every 20 and thermostats "never," says Schneier. "There exists no mechanism to patch them because it's not economically viable for third-parties," Schneier says.
The problems will mount as new devices emerge and they, along with the sensors and software used in conjunction with them get cheaper and last longer. “You don’t have the same ecosystem of upgrade in terms of patching, devices and operating system -- none of these things that in a computer world makes them better,” Schneier says. “When your furnace becomes part of the IoT and they say you have to replace the hardware on your furnace every two years... people are not going to do it.”
Assigning fault also plays a big hand in the complex market dynamics. When a perpetrator infiltrates a network through a software vulnerability, we point to the flawed software. But with connected devices forming what is essentially a digital daisy chain, it is difficult to attribute fault. "If you're refrigerator interacts with your router and hacks your Google account, whose fault is it?" Schneier says. "The market economy actually works against securing IoT."
Such security threats can snowball quickly, as Schneier wrote in a blog post last week: “Vulnerabilities on one system cascade into other systems, and the result is a vulnerability that no one saw coming and no one bears responsibility for fixing. The internet of things will make exploitable vulnerabilities much more common.”
An IoT security model
Qadium is tackling the IoT security problem with “global internet sensing” software that scours hundreds of terabytes of data generated by devices configured by a given organization. Indexing a hundred different protocols, calling out to all of the devices that reside on a customer’s network and gauging their responses for anomalies. It finds dark spaces in corporate networks CIOs didn’t even know existed.
“We look at the entire internetperpetually and turn it into an analytics challenge,” Kraning says. The goal is to say, “We know where all devices of interest to a company are.” Qadium’s customers include the U.S. Cyber Command and the Navy.
According to Perkins, who says Qadium competes with Bastile Networks, Great Bay Software and ForeScout Technologies, such technologies play a useful role in helping CIOs discover what’s on what he calls the “network of entities.” However, the challenge doesn’t end there. A second set of technologies is required to isolate and neutralize malware or other network incursions. Securing connected devices, he says, requires a multi-layer approach that involves providing the proper policy enforcement for existing devices and those that will come onto the network in the future. This is no trivial task.
"We've reached an era in computing now where we are able to project a pervasive digital presence into the edges of business and into the edges of life -- on the human body, in the human body, in the house, in the car,” Perkins says. Gartner estimates spending security technologies to protect the Internet of Things will top $840.5 million by 2020.
What does the future of IoT security look like? Schneier, who has closely watched the cybersecurity market evolve over the last three decades, says the federal government must provide regulatory oversight into cybersecurity by establishing a new federal agency – ideally a Department of Technology Policy – to regulate the industry, similar to how the FCC was created to regulate airwaves and the FAA guides airlines. For now, Schneier says the government remains woefully behind on IoT awareness.
Yet Schneier remains cautiously optimistic about the industry’s chances to solve the complex challenges – like it always has – over time and through trial and error. The solutions “will be like everything we do in computer security to date -- a hodgepodge of things that work pretty well," Schneier says. "We'll muddle through, screw it up and get better."
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Beam will join Microsoft’s Xbox team, and “remains committed to its mission of importing users and streamers across platforms” according to Microsoft.
