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For hardcore mobile users, global coverage has been something of a wet dream for decades. But if Samsung (and others like them) have their say, we could be reaping the benefits of a true world-wide-web sooner than previously anticipated.
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“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself”
– Henry Ford
A truly great business doesn’t stem from the willingness to make money. While having financial incentive certainly helps, a more important driver is innovation, delivering real value to the world.
Cloud-reliant software and services have enabled a paradigm shift for developers and service providers alike. Once based on the buy-once-use-forever concept, the acquisition of software and services has gravitated towards a licensing business model that has proved to be far more lucrative for every party involved, from the people who code the solution to the end users.
A recent report by Nemertes Research indicates that Unified Communications (UC) solutions, or Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), are selling much better as subscription bundles, as opposed to perpetual licensing which involves a large upfront investment. And it’s hardly a surprise.
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Since emojis started flooding our Internet devices, we’ve adopted new ways of communicating. Whether we’re texting someone, sending an email, or leaving a comment on a site, we somehow can’t escape these giggly yellow faces that say so much with so little. However, there’s an even more popular form of expressing enjoyment online than emojis.
Research done by Facebook – based on a piece by Sarah Larson from The New Yorker – reveals that ‘haha’ is by far the most widely used form of expressing laughter online, followed by emojis (particularly those with tears of joy), ‘hehe,’ and finally ‘lol.’ Here are some numbers extracted by Moira Burke and the Core Data Science team:
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The Internet went up in flames a few hours ago when Google announced a major shift in its organizational structure: the creation of a parent company called ‘Alphabet’ with the purpose of better managing the many branches spawned by Google in various fields (like the driverless car project). Alphabet will have one CEO and one President, while the subsidiaries (Google among them) will each have their own CEOs.
Co-founder Larry Page wrote in a blog post on Monday that Alphabet is merely an effort to make Google and all the projects that emerged from it over the years “cleaner and more accountable.” Parent company Alphabet will not be a consumer brand, Page said. In fact, the purpose of creating it was to allow each separate company to evolve individually and pursue its own branding. So, let’s answer some of the most pressing questions regarding Google’s surprising decision.
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The U.S. is ditching copper landlines in favor of IP telephony (about time!), but the FCC is requiring providers to notify customers of such plans three months in advance, as well as supply backup power sources needed in case of an outage. IP telephony has major advantages over legacy phone networks, some of which we will outline in this article.
The regulatory body issued its announcement yesterday, addressing service providers with the following claims:
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Cementing the belief that communication is vital in building and retaining a team, a study conducted by human resources firm SHRM reveals that employees rate their relationship with their immediate supervisor among the top five job satisfaction contributors.
Specifically, 54% of employees in the survey indicated that a good relationship with their team manager or supervisor was “very important” to their job satisfaction. Middle-management cited this aspect more vocally than the executive ranks (probably because the C-suite doesn’t get bossed around as much).
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Who says Unified Communications is slow to take off? In an analysis of the North American hosted IP telephony and UC&C services market, Frost & Sullivan reports that 2014 saw 8 million installed users, with a projection of 41.9 million users installed by 2021. That number will be mostly small and medium businesses (SMBs). Next in line will be large, distributed organizations looking to streamline their communications infrastructure and IT operations, while managing a remote workforce.
As it transitions from the early-adopter to mass-adoption stage, the North American hosted Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) services market is seeing growth rates accelerating. This is mainly due to an increase in customer awareness of cloud communications benefits. Providers are now compelled to differentiate their products through innovative features as scrutiny of service quality and reliability has increased. Vendors’ focus is gradually switching to refining their UC offerings, after successfully convincing SMBs to adopt the technology.
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We love it when communication flows. Everything we do at 4PSA revolves around communication and collaboration, so we believe strongly in the power of using these as tools for building teams and businesses. But sometimes, shutting up can help too.
According to a study published in the Journal Of Social & Personal Relationships, blocking communications with negative people can increase your productivity and even boost your IQ. It’s the kind of research that seems to reach an obvious conclusion, but most of us are oblivious to these teachings our entire lives.
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Unified Communications & Collaboration (UC&C) as a technology has unquestionable perks for productivity. In some cases, a good UC&C implementation leads to new revenue streams, a goal that sits high on every CEO’s agenda, yet many are reluctant to take the plunge. The reason itself is surprising.
Business leaders are regarded as anything but fearsome, but when it comes to investing in new technologies, many executives start to get cold feet. In a whitepaper titled Build a Better Business Case for UC, research firm Forrester offers a list of fears reported by the C-suite at 133 enterprises across the US and Europe regarding implementing UC services. Here it is below (complete with our own observations):