Companies are starting to realize the value of their CIOs Image Credit: las – initially. The importance of a CIO can be measured in a number of different ways. One such way is how often the CEO seeks out the CIO for consultation. MORE

You can never have too much cybersecurity Image Credit: Randen Pederson. Implementing a cyber-defense system for your company sure sounds like a good thing for the person with the CIO job to do. Just exactly what does that mean? MORE

Digitization is changing every aspect of a big company , from the way it uses technology to create its products, to the way it markets and sells them to customers, to the way it runs its operations to make all of that happen. MORE

Customer service is central to the overall customer experience that all consumers are familiar with when communicating with companies. That experience is often tested when we need to ask for help or have a question to be answered. MORE

Amazon today announced a new program that will make it free for tens of thousands of Alexa developers to build and host most Alexa skills using Amazon Web Services (AWS). MORE

No, you haven’t landed on the wrong page. We at Ascent Venture Partners are proud to present our shiny new website! I think you would agree – it was about time. Being a 30+ year old firm, we’ve gone through a number of website iterations. MORE

Carol M. Evenson. Over the last decade, cloud computing has gone from being a buzzword to an essential component of web technology. MORE

Chat apps characteristics make them very appealing to businesses and marketers. Prominent ones include their size, user retention, usage rates, and user demographics. In fact, the combined user base of the top four chat apps is larger than that of the top four social networks. MORE

Prescriptive analytics is about using data and analytics to improve decisions and therefore the effectiveness of actions. Isn't that what all analytics should be about? MORE

If you've been in the IT industry for any time at all, you know how analysts and vendors are perpetually in search of the New Shiny Thing :a brand-new super-cool technology that will change everything. Big data. In-memory analytics. Internet of things. AI and machine learning. Blockchain. MORE

Back in November 2016, I posted the blog entry on reporting local administrators on machines. That script is deployed to machines via an SCCM package that reports the local administrators back to SCCM to be able to be queried into a report. MORE

These days, talking to IT leaders about cloud is eerily like talking about retirement. Even though it might not be here yet, you know it's coming soon -- and investing for the future is prudent. While individual strategies vary, common themes are thankfully starting to emerge. MORE

Nathaniel Crocker. Seven Trends and Predictions for 2017. In billiards, you must call your shot ahead of time. You don’t get any points for luck. With that in mind, here are my on-the-record predictions for 2017. Trend #1 – Self Driving Cars. MORE

Windows Server 2016 includes a new version of Internet Information Server IIS – in this episode we will reveal all of the great new features and performance enhancements included so that you can understand how this may affect your deployment decisions with Windows Server 2016. MORE

I have spent my entire career in the channel. With 75% of world trade flowing through indirect channels according to the World Trade Organization, I’m always interested in seeing how businesses organize, manage, and execute their partner and alliance programs. MORE

Recently, we ran into a problem when we discovered some of the newer laptops were not automatically disabling the WiFi when connected to ethernet. What made the task even more difficult was that all of our Dell Latitude 7480 systems were already deployed. MORE

High demand and a limited pool of people with the right skills and experience make information security staffing a perennial challenge. Further complicating things is the fact that information security teams have not yet adapted to their changing role in digitizing companies. MORE

Just when you think you have the ball, that’s when a disruption can occur Image Credit: Matthew Wilkinson. MORE

The Remote Desktop Services (RDS) platform has been refined in Windows Server 2016. MORE

In this episode , you’ll learn about the huge performance and scale improvements made available with Hyper-V in Windows Server 2016. MORE

It’s been a busy year here at Ascent and we’d like to take a moment to look back at 2016 and recognize the accomplishments achieved by our portfolio companies throughout the year. From impressive rounds of funding, to new partnerships and platform launches, 2016 proved a very successful year. MORE

Photo credit: Shutterstock When executing an effective digital transformation strategy, management is tasked with placing the right workload into the most appropriate IT environment. MORE

Relationships between big corporate giants and startup companies are not new; young nimble companies bring innovation and new ideas, while larger established players have strong customer relationships and know how to properly support them. MORE

The Information Security Profession – Where do I Start? I am often asked by individuals to provide advice or guidance on how to get started in the field of information security. MORE

Today’s cautionary tale comes from Verizon’s sneak peek ( pdf ) of the 2017 Data Breach Digest scenario. It involves an unnamed university, seafood searches, and an IoT botnet; hackers were using the university’s own vending machines and other IoT devices to attack the university’s network. Since the university’s help desk had previously blown off student complaints about slow or inaccessible network connectivity, it was a mess by the time a senior member of the IT security team was notified. MORE

Do you currently have someone in your organization who fits this job description? If not, then it’s time you do. MORE

Photo credit: Shutterstock Runaway cloud computing cost may be causing an information technology industry crisis. Expanding requirements, extended transition schedules and misleading marketplace hype have made “Transformation” a dirty word. MORE

For those of you following industry cloud adoption -- and trying to figure out how the horse race between the four big players is shaking out -- today's news is certainly worth considering. AT&T is agreeing to move a significant number of their Oracle databases to the Oracle Cloud. MORE

Carol M. Evenson. Security breaches can happen to any organization. As more and more companies utilize mobile technology to access and connect with resources the threat of a security breach increases exponentially. MORE

The current wave of digitization disrupting the world’s companies is broader than past efforts. MORE

I found it nice to be able to get a clean, filtered report on what Windows updates got installed during the build process. This allows me to inject those updates into the MDT Packages so they get injected into the image before it is laid down to speed the process up. MORE