Category: Uncategorized

By Wendy Sanacore
It’s official. Apple is kicking Android device’s butt when it comes to use in the enterprise sector.
Why? Because for some companies, Android phones and devices are just not an option. Bruce Poon Tip from G Adventures only uses Apple iPhone and iPad. According to Poon Tip, Android devices and the Blackberry just can’t keep up in their environment.
According to a new study recently published, iPhones represented 53 percent of new device activations in the fourth quarter of 2011 for its enterprise customers as opposed to 28 percent for Android based phones.
However in the consumer space, Android phones out-sell iPhones, 52 percent to 37 percent.
The chief complaint on the enterprise level is security. Android is an open platform and users can download from sites that aren’t associated with Google’s Android market.
Without actively monitoring the security of these third party sites, it’s impossible to know the security of the apps.
What technology does your company rely on? All of TxMQ’s computers are Apple and we are split within the office about half and half, iPhone vs Android.
Do you trust Apps from open markets? How do you know what’s safe and what isn’t?

By Wendy Sanacore
You never know when a great idea is going to pop out of thin air. I’m currently working on TxMQ’s 2012 marketing campaign. We’ve never really done any official paid advertising, so it is an interesting process. I love speaking with all the different sales people at various publications as they try to separate their particular publication aside from the competition. I’ve heard all sorts of interesting demographic, readership and subscriber facts. Honestly, the reality is, they all have pretty much the same offer, the same target audience, etc. So wherever we do decide to advertise, I am confident that we can see a return on our investment.
But then came the twist; a new idea of where to spend some marketing dollars…the airports.
My colleague, Miles Roty, was traveling to LegalTech, a conference in the Big Apple this weekend and he spent some time in the airports on Saturday afternoon. I was going about my business at home when my cell phone notified me of a text message. It said, “Hey Wend – we should advertise in the airports” and with it was a picture of a competitor’s ad in the airport terminal.
What a GREAT idea! And it’s something I would never have thought about. But someone who works with me did.
So at this point, it’s not a matter of whether we do or don’t advertise in airports (though this morning I started the process of getting more information on it), it’s about listening to what the people around me have to say and allowing them to input suggestions and solutions to my questions.
Listen to those around you. You work in a group environment for a reason. I urge you to try it today, run something by a colleague or a friend. I bet they have a different, fresh take on it!
Sometimes two heads are truly better than one.
 

By Wendy Sanacore
Looks like Apple is doing it again. News today has it that Apple plans to re-invent the old fashioned textbook. Apple is preparing to offer a series of software tools to make it possible to move education from textbooks to interactive digital lessons. These lessons will be interactive, colorful and engaging for student.
According to a Yahoo! news article:

Jobs is cited by his biographer, Walter Isaacson, as saying textbooks were just waiting to be transformed. Not only were they dull and sometimes outdated, they were heavy (just ask any seventh-grader with a backpack full of them).

In “Steve Jobs,” Isaacson wrote, “His idea was to hire great textbook writers to create digital versions, and make them a feature of the iPad. In addition, he held meetings with the major publishers, such as Pearson Education, about partnering with Apple. ‘The process by which states certify textbooks is corrupt,’ he said. ‘But if we can make the textbooks free, and they come with the iPad, then they don’t have to be certified. The crappy economy at the state level will last for a decade, and we can give them an opportunity to circumvent that whole process and save money.'”

I read an article about the announcement in the Wall Street Journal citing Philip Schiller, Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing as saying that educational institutions already use more than 1.5 million iPads with access to more than 20,000 educational apps.
According to the article, 6% of education textbook sales will be digital this year, which is up from 3% in 2011. That number is expected to rise more than 50% by the year 2020.
One technology analyst stated that the only people that would be threatened by the change would be book publishers who don’t embrace the change and backpack makers because the textbooks are so heavy right now.
But my question is, who is then responsible for purchasing the iPads that the kids are going to use to learn on? Is it going to be a parent’s responsibility to purchase the $500 product for each child they have in school? And at what age is this going to begin? I’m not quite sure you can really trust an elementary or middle-schooler with a piece of technology that is so expensive.
I can only assume the schools won’t be absorbing this cost. We’re already cutting music and arts because the fundamentals can’t be funded, how can it be expected that iPads are going to be given to every child?
Technology has a place in classrooms right now. Teachers use digital tools to teach every day and students are already completing homework and accessing pertinent information online.
I just can’t see the total logistics of this initiative and how this isn’t going to be just one more burden for parents. Do you think this will truly improve our educational system?

On February 8, 2012, IBM is holdng a complimentary event designed to offer flexible, hands-on opportunities to experience IBM WebSphere SOA software.
The one-day event held at IBM Canada, 3600 Steeles Avenue, East, Markham (near Steeles & Warden) will increase your understanding of the capabilities of the WebSphere product family with hands-on exercises and discussions.
For more information, email [email protected].

By Wendy Sanacore
I was catching up on my email and the news of the world this morning, and I happened across a story with the headline: “Leopard Kills Man, Scalps Another.” Of course, I clicked on it to read it. There’s not a lot that surprises me that I find online, any and all information you should ever want is out there with the right amount of searching, but what came up when I clicked on this article really did surprise and revolt me…(I didn’t post the article here, but I am sure if you wanted to, you could find it.)
A photographer on the scene had captured the attack and there were three photos, the second showing a flap of the man’s head being torn off and the third showing the man walking away from the attack covered in blood, the side of his face ripped off.
If we were to watch a movie with those images, the movie would be rated “R”. But it’s not a movie, it’s the Internet…and it’s real life. And it’s scarily accessible. How much of what we see on both television and the Internet is desensitizing us to reality?
I remember a while ago I watched real time footage on the news of someone being shot. And when it was all over and the story was complete, I had to remind myself that the incident I had just witnessed was not a movie. It was a real person, gunned down and killed. It almost didn’t ring to me because of all we see in the movies.
So what, if anything, is there that we can do about the content online? How outrageous do we allow stories and posts to get and do we truly have any control over it whatsoever?
What are your thoughts?
 
 

The 2012 IBM System z Technology Summit includes 30 sessions grouped under five unique tracks based on job responsibilities and interests.
This is an annual event that gathers IT professionals and brings them up to speed on new mainframe technology and helps them make better use of existing hardware and software resources.
This year you’ll learn how IBM Mainframes – System Z(R) and zEnterpriseTM – are changing the way businesses solve problems by helping to optimize workload deployment infrastructure that also helps drive down costs.
Choose from five unique tracks
Our sessions are based on your interests and job responsibilities, with a full day of complimentary sessions under each track. Subject matter experts will cover topics ranging from deep analytics and collaborative application development, to using Decision Management so you can adapt to changes faster   and with more flexibility. You select the track and sessions that fit your requirements:
Track 1
zEnterprise – The ideal basis for Smarter Computing for IT managers, IT enterprise architects
Track 2
DB2® for z/OS® Technical Update for database administrators, database managers
Track 3
Smarter Development and Deployment for IT application architects and developers
Track 4
Application Infrastructure Modernization for Business Agility for system analysts, IT architects, application architects, CICS® application developers
Track 5
Data Center Operations and Systems Management Update for IT operations and system programmers
Dates:
January 26, 2012 – Toronto, Ontario
February 2, 2012 – Dallas, TX
February 7, 2012 – Washington, DC
February 21, 2012 – Atlanta
February 23, 2012 -Los Angeles
February 28, 2012 – New York City
For more information or if you’d like to attend, please email [email protected].
 

By Wendy Sanacore
Warren Buffet has a history of letting his disdain towards technology be noted. Bu this shifted dramatically last Monday when it was announced that Buffett has been slowly building up his stake in the technology giant over the past 8 months. He now owns about a 5.5% stake in the company which could easily make him the largest shareholder.
So what made the mogul change his mind in regards to investing in the IBM stock?
Buffett examined the way IBM conducts its business and liked what he saw. The services IBM provides allows them to be indispensable to their corporate clients in a way that many companies just aren’t anymore.
I have often spoken in my blog about the way to do business and make your company indispensable to your clients. You want to be provide services in a manner that make you a strategic business partner, not simply a vendor.
This is the nugget of gold that Buffett apparently sees in IBM. He was quoted as saying, “It’s a company that helps IT departments do their jobs better….I don’t know of any large company that really has been as specific about what they intend to do and how they intend to do it as IBM.”
Here at TxMQ, we like this news a lot! We support the IBM spectrum of Middleware and Software products. Any good news for IBM is good news for us. Buffet backing IBM proves to us that our niche market is going to be one to stand the test of time, which just means we have more and more time to get even better at doing what we already do great!

By Wendy Sanacore
We have weekly Monday morning meetings here at TxMQ. The whole group of us get together via face to face meeting and conference bridge and we discuss the previous week, progress on job openings, and what can be expected for the upcoming week.
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Chuck Fried, you don’t know then that he is the metaphor king. He has certain…call them…catch phrases that many of us have heard many times over. So we always sit back and wait for him to drop a new one.
This past Monday, he did not disappoint. In the not so humble words of Chuck Fried, Monday’s nugget of gold was, “The internet has made us all functional morons.”
I jotted it down, because it made me think. Without dating myself too much, I remember being in my junior year of high school and being tasked with the “dreaded” research paper.
We tackled it the same way students year after year had tackled it before us. We went to the library and scoured encyclopedias and microfiche data of newspapers and magazines for historical data.
But then we were introduced to something else. This really cool thing called the Internet. And I honestly think this is the first time I had ever heard of the Internet. My search engine? Alta Vista dial up. We all had to sign up in the library to use the two or three computers available with Internet connections. I think we blocked off like 20 minutes to use the computer…10 of which were comprised of the Internet trying to connect.
The one thing I do remember is that it opened up a whole new world for me. They taught classes on how to use the Internet. Then I went home and was able to teach my mom and dad.
One of our part time employees is a freshman in college. According to her, her research was almost exclusively done via Internet in high school.
And the technology progressed so quickly. It’s amazing to think that it was just 12 years ago.
Now I work for an IT staffing company that our bread and butter is the advancement of technology. That aside, his Monday statement rings true. And it isn’t just the Internet.
Quick question…what’s your best friend’s phone number? And don’t grab your phone to check…
See my point?