Enterprises spend 0 billion on software every year, yet some can’t even calculate the number of employees in their organizations. Shocking? Well, such was the problem for Chiquita before they moved to Workday.  But rudimentary challenges like this plague every enterprise in the world, and every individual within those enterprises. When we need to derive anything beyond the basics from our enterprise software, most corporations are out of luck.

This problem is only getting worse. With 1.8 trillion gigabytes of information projected to be generated and stored this year alone, our enterprise technology is on a collision course to become utterly useless if something doesn’t fundamentally change.  The data being created is obnoxiously large, with IDC citing that “by 2020, IT departments worldwide will need to administer 10 times the number of servers–both virtual and physical–50 times the amount of data, and 75 times more files.”  Our software, infrastructure, and organizations are ill-prepared to manage this scale of data creation, let alone generate anything meaningful or useful with this amount of content being created and shared.

But this is about to change. It has to. The cloud, social capabilities, and a web of integrated applications are on the verge of creating a far more personalized technology experience for tomorrow’s workers, and a world where an increase in data generates an increase in value and knowledge for organizations.

The client-server paradigm and a reverse network effect

The emergence of the personal computer may have transformed the way we work, but the software revolution that followed was anything but personalized. And amazingly, very little has changed for today’s average knowledge worker over the past two decades. The legacy software within today’s enterprises is stale, static and non-contextual. Applications don’t adapt to our behavior, or tell us anything new about our content and projects that we didn’t explicitly tell them. And they certainly have no understanding of our relationships with co-workers, partners, or customers.

It’s not just end users who are suffering. Technology still rooted in the client-server paradigm invariably prevents organizations from deriving real value from their systems.  Generally, any influx of employees or the addition of a geographically disparate team requires new instances of applications and infrastructure. An organization might have SharePoint running in many different data centers throughout the world, making it nearly impossible to efficiently upgrade applications, deploy new servers and perform maintenance at scale. And with application sprawl comes data sprawl, creating a veritable digital landfill of unconsolidated, silo-ed information.  In looking at the fragmentation of SharePoint in large organizations, a leading enterprise content management analyst, Alan Pelz-Sharpe, discovered that “…enterprises can in fact reach a point of negative returns where an inability to manage proliferating SharePoint silos becomes a hidden but serious enterprise management risk.”

Enterprises everywhere are experiencing the opposite of a standard network effect with their information and people. In these sprawled and firewalled environments, an increase in users and data make it more difficult to locate content, make decisions, and gain insights from past actions.  This means more information is creating more complexity – far from the ideal outcome if organizations are about to generate orders of magnitude more information.

The cloud and centralization

Of course, decentralization and fragmentation of data and applications isn’t a new problem by any means. Early last decade, Oracle decided that application and data sprawl were hindering customers’ agility, decision making and cost savings.  Larry Ellison said of the client/server era, “Your information was chopped into tiny pieces, stored in lots of tiny databases, running on lots of tiny PC server computers.  This data fragmentation was accompanied by distributed complexity.”

Not surprisingly, Oracle’s solution to this problem was to have all core applications run on a single Oracle database instance with consistency across its apps. This would have worked marvelously if the world wanted to adopt only Oracle’s software — but that comes at the cost of tying your entire fate to a single vendor’s vision, roadmap and services.  With the emergence and maturity of cloud platforms, there’s now another way.

On-premise applications are inherently limited in that they rarely leverage data beyond what’s immediately available on a local machine, server or narrow data store. The opposite is true with most cloud products that take a centralized approach to storage and computing, and we’re only now starting to tap into their potential.

At Box, our model is store once, extend everywhere — and “everywhere” spans desktops, smartphones, tablets and even other apps. With the cloud, users can get to content and tools from any device, and IT departments are no longer burdened with maintaining and upgrading cumbersome hardware and software. This is making today’s employees more mobile, nimble and productive, and it’s enabling organizations to focus on competitive differentiators rather than systems management and maintenance.

But centralization is only phase one. If the first wave of the cloud is about realizing the efficiencies of moving software to the web, then the second wave is about making this software — and in turn, our organizations — much smarter. Software has tremendous potential to look at lots of pieces of information and make decisions to produce optimal outcomes. Then learn from these results, iterate, and do it again. We’re seeing this at work in the consumer world: think about how Facebook exposes the people we’re likely to know or updates we’re likely to engage with, or how Netflix makes personal recommendations to its users, aggregating and learning from the ratings across millions of users. As described by Mike Olson, the CEO of Cloudera, the power all this data is about being able to answer qualitative questions like, ”What do you like? Who do you know?” and no longer about simply solving basic equations.

Applied in the enterprise, our software, backed by large amounts of information to cull through, can tell us far more about our businesses than we could ever know ourselves.

From the social enterprise to the smarter enterprise

Given our trajectory, all enterprises will soon be filled with dozens or hundreds of light and heavy-weight applications that are function, company and industry specific. Salesforce.com has an app marketplace of thousands of add-ons, Jive and Yammer have their own respective ecosystems. With apps that can talk to each other, we’re seeing the emergence of a much more integrated enterprise technology stack – starkly contrasting the vertically integrated solutions from a single provider, apps are pulling from different data sources to create powerful mashups and overlays. Roambi, for instance, makes it easy for you view your CRM data from your iPad. Marketo lets you create extensive marketing automation customizations tying together email marketing, Google AdWords, and Salesforce.

But rather than the proliferation of apps creating more fragmentation, they’ll actually increase personalization and relevance of information. Driving this will be the social utilities that wrap around our enterprise applications of the future. Every action we take in our personal lives can be manifested as a social event, whether it’s checking into a restaurant, accepting a party invitation, or updating a status — our whereabouts, thoughts and actions help us engage with others both actively and passively. The same is becoming true in the enterprise, and it will create the first real ROI we’ll see from social activity in the enterprise. Yammer, Jive, Box, and Chatter securely broadcast the work we’re doing to our coworkers, and we’re about to see yet is what happens when these streams become more connected to all the other applications we’re using.

But it’s not just about creating a more social workforce with frequent status updates, file “likes” and ad-hoc conversations. In the enterprise, social is only useful if it makes us smarter. Think about it. You update a project status and all the relevant participants are passively notified of the change or delay.  Or a member of the sales team uploads content for a proposal, and someone from another department or team comments on its relevance to their own work.

As our social stream algorithms improve, user behavior will drive for better ranking of the information you and others should be looking at.  And with federation and syndication of this data and events, our applications will all work smarter together.  An HR update in Workday will prompt a response from someone on Chatter.  Customer support requests on Zendesk are analyzed by an executive in GoodData.  Software will be able to quickly connect the dots across people and data, building a combined view of the most important information. Most importantly, this can all be done passively, with little to no involvement from the user.

Rather than an increase in information and engagement yielding diminishing returns, our systems will get smarter with every interaction. We’ll be served content that has been filtered by our colleagues, and outputs that are corroborated by multiple platforms. As individuals and organizations, we’ll move faster and make better decisions based on better data. This is what we’re starting to hear from customers when they deploy cloud solutions like Box and others. This is the future.

Aaron Levie is CEO and founder of Box.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Susan NYC.

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Do you let your dog sleep on your bed? You do, don’t you? Once you read this story, you might want to rethink that.

Wired Top Stories

If it turns out that Gates really is an evil genius, we’re all screwed. I mean, first he’ll unleash a plague of hurricanes on the coasts of the world, then he’ll release clouds of mosquitoes all over the newly marshy world, and then he’ll tell all the Windows-running reactors to shut down and he’ll be only power source, running for 100 years off depleted uranium.

But if he’s not… well, then we’re all in for a treat. Because the guy is tackling some seriously heavy issues. The latest is a project with Toshiba and Terrapower to create a nuclear reactor that can run for 100 years on a single charge of fuel. There are currently projects underway to create compact reactors that will run for 30 years, but 50-100 is the goal of the new “traveling-wave” style.

Gates is said to be putting a lot of his own money on the line, and the project should run into the hundreds of billions of yen, which is to say billions of dollars at least. I mean, developing a new breed of nuclear reactor isn’t a thing one does lightly. Well, guys, if this isn’t part of some master plan to rule the world, good job.

The OpenTablet 7 from OpenPeak looks like a pretty decent little piece of hardware. I don’t see any specs in the release, but it’s based on Intel’s Moorestown platform, has a 7″ screen, and probably is respectable in the areas of RAM and so on. It’s even got two cameras, HDMI out, and more. The thing is, though: it’s all Flash-based. I don’t know about you, but the idea of an entire tablet being reliant on Flash is kind of disconcerting to me.

They say of the device:

…an ultra-sleek, portable, touch-screen tablet that combines high-quality telephony with advanced multi-media communications services and applications to deliver an engaging, interactive experience.

…OpenPeak’s software framework enables designers and developers to create highly interactive applications using Adobe® Flash® CS4, eliminating the need to learn new programming languages or complex APIs.

(from the press release)Maybe I’m crazy, but doesn’t that sound a bit like “make thousands from home” or “lose weight without exercising”?

I tolerate Flash apps on the net because sometimes they’re the only way… but it doesn’t seem like an ideal choice for basing your whole platform on. Just look at how everyone avoids Flash websites like the plague — you think they want their entire computing experience to be like that? I don’t know, maybe for some people it’d be nice to work within a well-established and delimited framework like that.

Also, I have to register my ire at the fact that this thing is called the “OpenTablet” and it’s tied at the hip to something which is not even close to open. It’s open in that developers should feel free to develop Flash apps for it, but that’s about it. I think I’ll wait for Chrome OS or a related fork, running on actual open hardware.

[via HotHardware]

unwanted mails, this is the general name for the wide phenomenon we all know as spam. Viruses and spyware usually threaten the curious email user who wants to see what hides behind an enticing title or promise of great fortune. Mailboxes of Internet users all over the world are day after day bombarded by unwanted mails, and many people wonder how they even get the target of such spamming activities. The truth is that most people who become spam and scam victims, do not know how the Internet frauds take place. They consider spam bothering because it clogs the inbox, but few, more experienced ones realize the existent dangers that lurk in unwanted mails.

First of all, whenever you enter your email address in a box that requires registration you can become a victim for scammers. How often does that happen to you? Have you ever forwarded messages with jokes, nice pictures or warnings that you’ve apparently received from a friend? Have you given you email address when filling in application forms? These are the premises for getting unwanted mails. Experts advise Internet users to have alternative addresses that they use for registering on web pages that ask for an email address.

Most unwanted mail include ads for pornography, drugs and gambling sites. Others sell cheap pirated software, fake watches or home business schemes. new spam tendency is to inform people of a lottery win or some big transaction that will be conducted through your business. There is not a word about the details, and you are kindly asked to contact the sender. Therefore, there are scams camouflaged behind many unwanted mails. The other threats come from viruses and other forms of malware that once you open the message get installed on the computer.

There are many people who have faced loss of personal data, money theft from bank accounts and all sorts of problems because of such malicious programs sent via unwanted mails. The best way to fight against the spam plague is to activate all the anti-spam features of the email filters and eventually install an anti-spam blocker to prevent messages from reaching your computer. Blockage from anti-spam software and the PC user’s caution, go hand in hand for efficient elimination of spam. Read online information and program reviews to learn about the hazards of spam and the best methods to detect and fight it.

Nowadays, increasingly more people spend hours and hours searching for a printer or fax and copying machine that can help them carry out loads of work, saving time and money. In fact, both individuals and small businesses are trying to find the best possible solution that combines everything in one. This is why Sharp is among the top choices when it comes to electronic equipment; the multi function machines of this company are dependable and reliable. Buying a Sharp UX 600M Printer and toner, for instance, can prove extremely helpful whether you are a student or your run a small office business.

The vast majority of people today do not have enough time to spend on such operations; therefore finding a machine that does everything is an important denominator in their selection criteria. Moreover, most people who deal with loads of printing and copying jobs are rarely satisfied with the performance levels of their machines, as most of them leave a lot to be desired – or get jammed way too often. This is what Sharp wants to change launching reliable and hard working multi function machines to the markets.

Multi function machines are very convenient, especially for small businesses and home offices; they can be used by students and professionals who do not have enough space to purchase separate machines for each function. Today, though, even bigger businesses prefer buying these types of machines, simply because they are money and time saving and they can perform very well.

Sharp machines come with full accessories and parts; a typical box of a printer or multi function machine contains all necessary cables, driver CDs and manuals.

An additional advantage of Sharp is the great response time of its customer support centre. This is usually a plague for the big businesses that sell electronic machines; if you have tried to contact a huge company you know that the average waiting time for the service department is a few weeks, or maybe months. This is what doesn’t happen in Sharp – the return times are much less as the company replaces or fixes its machines within days.

Most of the Sharp multi function machines, such as AL-1661 or UX 600M, feature duplex option, which means that you can print double sided copies; this can save you time and of course paper and is quite helpful if you have to print guides, materials for customers or co-workers and other similar things associated with loads of work.

In general, the Sharp machines are known for the speed of printing and copying jobs as well as the quality of the produced job; when printing or copying with a Sharp printer, you can expect nothing less than crisp and clear texts and high quality images.

In addition, one of the great advantages of Sharp are the cost effective accessories; if you buy a Sharp UX 600M Printer Toner you will need to spend just a few dollars, opposite from other expensive toners. This is a great Printer Toner. Sharp Toner Cartridge is trusted worldwide.