Chaos abounds as BYOD costs prompt confusion

Cost confusion and chaos in BYOD (Photo: s_falkow)

Fiercely divided opinion on BYOD despite ‘hype’

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ A new survey has revealed that fears are rising around the hidden costs of BYOD deployment – as well as ‘class divides’ and evidence that company managers are using BYOD to ‘pacify’  staff.

Moreover, some IT managers are even asking ‘is it worth surrendering control just to raise staff morale?’

Opinion is still divided when it comes to implementing ‘Bring Your Own Device’ strategies within businesses, with many at the top suggesting that such deployments create more problems than they solve.

Hearing to probe cellular data legal status

A cell phone tower in Palatine, Illinois, USA.

Foundation fights for cellular phone users’ privacy in Tuesday hearing

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus +++ The Electronic Frontier Foundation will urge a federal appeals court on Tuesday to recognize cellular phone users’ privacy rights and require that the government obtain a warrant before collecting cell phone location information.

According to the Foundation, the oral argument is set for 9 a.m. on October 2nd in New Orleans.

At issue in Tuesday’s hearing are government requests for judicial orders authorizing the disclosure of 60 days of location data from two separate cell phone companies as part of a routine law enforcement investigation.

Big Corporates Choking SMEs With Late Payment – Survey

On hold after dealing with automated system (Photo credit: Pahz)

Late payments debt high enough to put UK SMEs out of business

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ As the number of British small and medium-sized businesses facing late payments reaches more than a million – with a total aggregated outstanding debt of almost £36.4 billion, many SMEs are in danger of going under.

That’s the startling finding according to new research undertaken for payment specialists BACS.

According to the shocking findings, nationally, the average amount owed to one of Britain’s SMEs is £36,000 – yet 35 percent of SMEs reported that late payment debts of up to just £20,000 would be enough to put them out of business, in a survey by BACS Payment Schemes, the company the runs the Direct Debit system.

Euro crisis to last a decade – Farage

Nigel Farage with Members of the University of York Freedom Association Society (Photo credit: The Freedom Association)

Currency crisis to bring ‘creeping European dictatorship’

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Businesses trying to plan investment for the future and commerce with increasing mountains of bureaucratic ‘jobsworth’ red tape, compliance, regulations and directives from across the sea had a wake up call this week.

Responding to the ‘State of the Union’ speech by Eurocrat Manuel Barroso, UKIP leader Nigel Farage said Barroso had “totally underestimated the complete fanaticism, Mr Barroso of you, your college of commissioners and the European central bank.”

Third amendment for open source Joomla CMS

Joomla releases Version 3.0

Open source content management system now optimized for native display of content on mobile devices with Twitter bootstrap

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Joomla, the open source content management systems has just launched Version 3.0 along with new features PostgreSQL driver and a new front-end template.

According to Joomla, the CMS can now display content on mobile devices as clearly and distinctly as it does on a personal computer or Mac.

REVIEW: Honestech Audio Recorder 3.0 Plus with USB Cassette Player

By ECM PLUS REVIEWS LAB

ECM Plus +++ With just a few clicks convert your analogue audio content into digital with the Honestech Audio Recorder 3.0 Plus.

Convert all of your music, including cassettes, LPs and 8-track tapes, into MP3s, WAV files, audio CDs and MP3 CDs, and listen to them on your portable music players, preserving and backing up your audio.

Dell data safe for ‘a thousand years’ with M-DISC

CEO Michael Dell. Dell Began as a Storage Company (Photo credit: Dell

Dell first to offer business clients the ultimate in disc data storage with M-DISC technology

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Computer behemoth Dell is to begin offer a permanent storage solution to its European customers with the integration of M-DISC compatible LG Electronics DVD and Blu-ray optical drives in its laptop and desktop computers.

Businesses boot out banks as ‘trust’ collapses

(Photo credit: Truthout.org)

Survey finds SMEs divorcing bank managers

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Bank managers are being ditched and divorced, as accountants, lawyers and finance directors become the most trusted financial advisers, according to new research into small to medium-sized enterprises.

The new research of 1,000 British small to medium-sized companies by Hitachi Capital Invoice Finance looked at SMEs attitudes and how they really felt about who they trust to keep their business on track.

Finance reports ‘out of date’ and ‘inaccurate’ – survey

Stack ’em high (Photo credit: ant.photos)

46 per cent of finance departments believe reports they produce are never used

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Nearly half of managers and directors view reports produced by someone else no more than once per week. An alarming 46 per cent of finance professionals believe that they produce reports that are never used and 63 per cent believe that senior managers should make more use of financial information.

ISP finds British ‘bulldog spirit’ alive and well

Britons proud of being British – Plusnet ISP survey

Plusnet reveals eight out of ten people are proud to be British

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Internet Service Provider Plusnet has revealed that 81% of the nation feel proud to be British.

Plusnet commissioned a survey, with focus groups and insights from psychologist Dr. Cliff Arnall, which found that 80% of Brits say family gives them sense of pride.

Plusnet CEO Jamie Ford said: “This year Plusnet changed its strapline to ‘We’ll do you proud’ which, by coincidence, has been a rather fitting move given the events of 2012.”

Added Ford: “We’re certainly a proud nation when it comes to our culture, sense of humour and our heritage. However, it is matters closer to home and the everyday actions of family that generates the biggest sense of pride and here at Plusnet, we’re committed to making our customers proud of the products and services we provide every day.”

 

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Canon to acquire Belgian document imaging firm

Canon blasts into Europe

Japanese vendor Canon plans to acquire I.R.I.S. Group SA to accelerate solutions and services business

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Imaging behemoth Canon is to launch, via its subsidiary in Europe, a voluntary and conditional public takeover bid in cash for all shares, warrants and stock options of I.R.I.S. Group SA.

According to the Japanese vendor, their bid relates to all shares, including treasury shares, issued by I.R.I.S. Group SA, which are not held by Canon Europa N.V. The bid offers a price of 44.50 euros per share, and the price for warrants 

Big bank insider exposes $20bn UBS tax evasion, awarded $104m

National Whistleblowers Center – www.whistleblowers.org

Whistleblower bags massive $104 million reward for foiling bankster scam

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /Washington, D.C./ +++ Former UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld has won a massive whistleblower reward of $104 million for his contributions in providing the U.S. Government with insider information on UBS’ illegal offshore banking scheme.

According to the National Whistleblowers Center, this is believed to be the largest reward ever given to an individual whistleblower in the United States and the first major reward issued under the IRS tax whistleblower law.

REVIEWS: Just Wicked Earsay: Musical Fidelity EB-50 In-ear monitors

By ECM Plus Review Labs

MUSICAL FIDELITY EB-50 In Ear Monitors / Headphones

ECM Plus +++ /Reviews/: Musical Fidelity EB-50 In-Ear Monitors

Better known perhaps around the world for their hign-end audio separates, Musical Fidelity’s first foray into headphones and in-ear monitoring is a bold adventure given the market is so heavily penetrated by big names such as Sennheiser, AKG, Grado, Beyer Dynamic and the usual morass of hi-fi manufacturers.

Good acquires Copiun in collaboration move

Copiun acquired by Good Technology. Photo: Enterprise 2.0 Conference

Good Technology signs agreement to acquire Copiun

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Good Technology has acquired Copiun Inc., a privately-held company specialising in secure mobile collaboration.

According to the company, Copiun’s products enable mobile users to access file shares, SharePoint or other document stores from anywhere without a VPN connection or firewall reconfiguration.

Business crowdfunding to boost economy

Sheffield to play host to crowdfunding event. Photo: Paolo Margari

British business owners become their own financiers, set to make banksters obsolete 

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ So fed up are British business owners with the bankster establishment, their disinterest in lending or supporting the economy that a group of British entrepreneurs, dissatisfied with ‘business-as-usual’, have come together to ‘tear up the rulebook’  and ‘cutting out the middle-men’.

Foundation sues over email and phone hacking allegations

Electronic Frontier Foundation

EFF says government ‘withholding information’ about ‘unconstitutional spying’

Washington, D.C. – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) today, demanding answers about illegal email and telephone call surveillance at the National Security Agency (NSA).

EMI taps Sunrise for publishing management

Music publishing company taps Sostenuto

British sofware firm Sunrise Software signs up EMI Music Publishing

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Music publisher EMI Publishing has just inked a new deal with British service management sofware specialists Sunrise Software for its Sostenuto software to support 900 users in 55 countries..

Accordin to EMI, the Software as a Service (SaaS) IT Service Management solution went live in one week and is already providing greater visibility of EMI’s IT activities and tighter integration between its two main Service Desks in London and New York.

Rackspace to acquire Mailgun for cloud email integration

Rackspace to acquire Mailgun

Rackspace takes aim at Mailgun in ‘open cloud’ platform expansion

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Rackspace Hosting, the open cloud company, has just entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Mailgun, Inc., a Y Combinator startup.

According to Rackspace, their Mailgun acquisition will further enhance its product portfolio, making it easy to integrate cloud-based email services into applications and websites within minutes.

Storage spat heightens as Quantum sues Overland

Image via CrunchBase

Patent infringement battle hots up, response to Overland lawsuit denies patent infringement by Quantum

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Data protection and big data management behemoth Quantum Corp. has today filed suit against Overland Storage for patent infringement in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California.

EFF Frisco bound for ‘pioneers’ gong fest

EFF ‘Pioneer Awards’ 2010 postcard invite

Hardware Hacker, Anti-ACTA Activist, and Groundbreaking Anonymity Group Win EFF Pioneer Awards

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /San Francisco/ +++ The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is to reveal their distinguished winners of the 2012 Pioneer Awards, with hardware hacker Andrew (bunnie) Huang, anti-ACTA activist Jérémie Zimmermann, and the Tor Project – the organization behind the groundbreaking anonymity tool Tor.

The award ceremony will be held the evening of September 20 at Project One Gallery in San Francisco. The founding developer of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, will be the keynote speaker.

Free DDoS survival guide on how to keep content alive

DDOS – Denial of Servicel (Photo credit: -= Treviño =-)

New guide from EFF – Keeping Your Site Alive – outlines how to keep content online in case of a Denial of Service Attack

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ A new online guide from the Electronic Frontier Foundation outlines how website operators can fend off DDOS attacks and keep their sites alive and accessible. DDoS – Distributed Denial of Service attacks – the flooding websites with traffic in order to make them unavailable – have become an increasingly popular way to take down or block Internet content, EFF said.

EVENT NEWS: Commonwealth ICT players to meet at City forum

The City of London to host ICT forum

Data centres, hubs and networking to take centre stage in November

ECM Plus /London/ +++ EVENTS NEWS EXTRA +++ The annual conference will be joined by the leadership of ICT firms from Commonwealth countries, finance executives, investors, law firms and regulators to discuss the opportunities for innovative international investment partnerships to accelerate economic performance.

British businesses hurt by poor Internet coverage – survey

Jeremy Hunt preached the ministerial code (Photo credit: Gwydion M. Williams)

Government policy under fire as new survey reveals Internet strategy should focus on coverage not speed

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ A new report of 1,500 British small businesses reveals that 57 percent stated that the ‘poor quality of their internet access’ is now adversely affecting their ability to do business.

According to the findings, by Freelancer.co.uk, small businesses in Britain are now at odds with Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who reiterated in a speech at the Google Campus building that broadband speed is more important than coverage.

Alfresco unveils Records Management 2.0

Open source Alfresco launches Records Management 2.0

Open source doyen Alfresco takes wraps off latest Records Management 2.0 for enterprise file capabilities

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Alfresco’s newest Records Management 2.0 is now available for serving enterprise organisations and government departments for management of governance and compliance processes.

According to the open source content software specialist, RM 2.0 boasts open source records management and retention tools.

Belgian DAM doyen bolsters SDL links in CXM move

Belgians bolster DAM efforts

Retail client content project spurs firms in joint operations for customer satisfaction

By ECM Plus staff

ECM Plus /London/ +++ Ghent-based ADAM Software and SDL have just reaffirmed their partnership to offer customer experience to companies with large-scale e-commerce operations.

According to the two firms, the move builds on a national retail chain where SDL and ADAM Software carried out a seamless deployment of an online store containing hundreds of thousands of pieces of content.