CFO Expectations of IT


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Alan Stevens

With over 20 years IT experience, from companies as varied as 3i, Wang, Abbey National, IBM and Xerox, Alan Stevens is well placed to observe and comment on the technology he deals with on a day to day basis.

Alan Stevens

September 07, 2011

More mixed messages

What next for HP?

Having, apparently, indicated that it wanted to get out of the PC business and having pulled the plug on it newly released tablet and supporting...

Posted by: Alan Stevens

September 07, 2011

TDM, dying but not dead yet

Time Division Multiplexing

With so much being written about Voice over IP and Unified Communications, it's easy to forget that there are still lots of companies who, for...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

September 07, 2011

A juicy problem

Security, corporate communications worries

Security is a perennial concern, with the explosion in the use of mobile devices adding further to corporate communications worries. But if you...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

August 26, 2011

What next for business in the post-PC era?

Where next for business IT?

According to Steve Jobs, we're entering the "post-PC" era, arguing that, for many of us, tasks previously performed on a PC can now be done on...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

August 26, 2011

Google plus Motorola

Good move?

So, the big news this week is the proposed acquisition of handset and tablet vendor Motorola Mobility by online giant Google. Lots has been...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

August 26, 2011

Camera, lights, action

Bring on the HD

With video becoming all-pervasive, I thought it about time I upgraded my camera equipment. It turned out to be a remarkably easy and affordable...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

August 26, 2011

Facebook video calling, or maybe not...

Social media communication

Having recently bought a shiny new HD Webcam I thought I'd give the new Facebook video calling service a go. After several fruitless hours,...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

August 18, 2011

It's all about the network

In order to communicate, you need to be adequately connected

"In order to communicate, you need to be adequately connected..." - not sure if that's a real quote or a truism I just made up, either way,...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

August 05, 2011

Still leaving on a jet plane?

Alternatives to business travel

With large parts of the world still reeling from the global banking crisis and the cost of doing business sky rocketing, it's not surprising to...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

August 05, 2011

No to headset hair

Desktop phone still rules

I was pointed recently towards a blog entry from VoIP phone vendor Snom, entitled "Why desktop phones rule". An entry which really struck a...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

August 05, 2011

Better voicemail

HulloMail anyone?

One of the reasons why News of the World journalists found it so easy to eavesdrop on mobile messages is an almost unthinking customer acceptance...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

August 02, 2011

Talk to the tablet

UC loves the touch screen

With Cisco and Avaya both releasing tablets to work with their unified communications systems I've been thinking recently about the practicality...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

August 02, 2011

Gartner verdict on IM and presence

Unified Communications

I notice that market analyst Gartner has published an online report looking at instant messaging and presence products. The full report can be...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

August 02, 2011

What is HP doing with UC?

Unified confusion?

HP, it seems, want to be friends with just about everyone in the unified communications business, but appears not to want to get its hands dirty...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

August 02, 2011

Phone hacking and UC

Privacy and Security

Never one to let a bandwagon go by without jumping on it, I thought I'd share a few thoughts on the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Priva...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

July 25, 2011

None of your business

Social Media and Unified Communications

For years now IT developments have tended to follow a fairly predictable pattern, driven mainly by the needs of business customers. Take email,...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

July 15, 2011

Lync and Skype to do fantastic things

Is Microsoft upping the tempo?

Questions as to how Microsoft intends to integrate Skype and its Lync Server solution together were only partly answered by CEO Steve Ballmer in...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

July 15, 2011

Not so new kid on the social block

Google and the plus

You don't need me to tell you that Google is (again) attempting to carve out a place in the social networking oligarchy. Having tried and failed...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

July 14, 2011

Bring it on

Its all about the video chat

Oh how times have changed. Rewind to 2004 and there's a more than strong possibility that you missed the announcement from MySpace that it was...

Posted by: Alan Stvens

July 12, 2011

Back to basics -unified communications in a nutshell

Taking a UC step back

While sat the other day in yet another unified communications (UC) presentation, it struck me that a lot of the discussion was centred around...

Posted by: Alan Stvens


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CFO Expectations of IT